


Crazy Men With Guns

by CharleyFoxtrot



Series: Talented People With Interesting Skillsets [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Afghanistan, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, BAMF, BAMF!Everybody, BAMF!John, F/F, F/M, Gen, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Military, Post-Reichenbach, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:12:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharleyFoxtrot/pseuds/CharleyFoxtrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You want us to be some...what, psychic and potentially homoerotic Charlie's Angels?"</p><p>John Watson's observations aren't too far off the mark: Afghanistan replaces London and our psychic quartet begins to learn the practical applications of their skills in a warzone. General badassery is just a side-effect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. TUESDAY NIGHT TAKE-OUT

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to “J. B. Rhine Was Kind of a Dick.” By “direct sequel,” I mean, “takes place within hours of the end of that story.” You'll probably need to read that story to make any sense of this one, but here's some bullet points if you're not feeling up to it:
> 
> \- John is a telepath and has recently discovered some telekinetic ability. He and Sherlock share a psychic bond that allows them to talk to each other telepathically. They're also romantically involved.  
> \- Greg Lestrade is an empath with some very minor precognitive ability. He now lives in John's old room.  
> \- Sally Donovan is a precog and is now friends with Sherlock. She is also dating Harry Watson.  
> \- Sherlock is a finding clairvoyant.  
> \- The four of them have been training over the last three or four months to beef up their psychic skills. All of them can now, to some level, talk to each other psychically.  
> \- A few months ago an accident involving a psychedelic drug, an attempt to recreate a séance, and an unshielded John Watson led these four people to all be wandering around in Sherlock's mind palace.
> 
> This fic will be updated as I find the time. Considering how quickly the first fic in the series was written, I'm hoping this will practically write itself. As it stands, I have outlines. I have plots. I have ideas. So if I'm not writing, it's because of writer's block rather than a lack of preparation. I should probably finish it before posting, but whatever.
> 
> As usual, you can find me at my tumblr, disease-danger-darkness-silence.tumblr.com.

Tuesdays were, by default, the days that Sally always came over for dinner, because Tuesdays were the one day a week when Harry had to work late.

It was probably a coincidence that Mycroft had come to visit them on a Tuesday. Either way, it worked out perfectly. By the time Greg got home from the Yard, dragging Sally with him, John had already ordered a full spread of Chinese food – Sherlock's favorite, of course, but Sally's as well. 

John was fairly certain that Sally would be the holdout, even though she'd dreamed of this nearly a month ago (or rather, she'd dreamed one of his dreams with him, and then somehow managed to twist it into a precog. John had been stunned but hadn't known what it meant for sure until today). Sherlock and John had each other, and Greg wasn't seeing anyone seriously right now, but Sally had _Harry_. She'd be reluctant to leave so soon after moving in with his sister.

John could and did block his emotions from Greg; using his and Sherlock's psychic bond, he shielded Sherlock as well, although the younger man was pretty decent at hiding things these days. They'd had very nearly three solid months of psychic training; his abilities were bound to improve. 

They _all_ had, actually. John allowed himself a brief moment of pure pleasure for and at their little group. He didn't, despite what Mycroft had said, consider them some sort of special operations group. The potential they had, though, was _immense_. 

Especially if they took into account the stack of papers shoved on top of one of the rows of books: research on how to use the gestalt technique to supercharge psionic abilities. Mycroft had lived up to his word and had it delivered by the end of the business day. John hadn't been able to look through it much, but he fully intended on practically memorizing them.

If dinner seemed a little tense to Greg or Sally, neither of them said anything. They were chatting about something that had happened at work involving Anderson, which had forced both Sherlock and John to promptly tune the two of them out. Talking about Anderson during meals put Sherlock right off his food.

Afterward, as is tradition, they sit around watching prime time telly and drinking beer; laughing at Sherlock's ranting toward the television was a required portion of the evening, as far as they're all concerned. So naturally, Greg would notice when Sherlock is unnaturally quiet, both mentally and physically.

“Right,” he said, setting his beer down on the coffee table and crossing his arms at his two flatmates. “John, you've been shielding both you _and Sherlock_ all night. Explain.”

Sally set her beer down as well, interested.

John shot Sherlock a look; the younger man turned the volume on the telly down to nil in response and raised his eyebrow.

_If I didn't know better I'd swear your brother planned it this way,_ John thought, wryly. Sherlock didn't respond, merely grinning back at him. It was unnerving, seeing Sherlock this gleeful about something (even if it was just the two of them preparing for a long, death-defying case in a desert).

“Now appears to be as good a time as any,” John said. He stood and retrieved the papers from the bookcase; shuffling through them, he reached the least-interesting (to him, at least) of the bunch and held them out to Greg.

“Mycroft came to see us today,” John commented, lightly. “Thinks he might have something for the four of us to take care of.”

Greg took one look at the papers before paling. “Afghanistan,” he croaked, flipping through them at a rapid pace.

“Give me those,” Sally said, frowning. She flipped through them just as quickly and managed to look annoyed rather than upset.

“Why would he even _think_ we could do something about this?” Greg asked, still looking ill. “This is nearly a _hundred_ psychics hiding out in a terrorist country with a mysterious and enigmatic leader. This is _way_ beyond us.”

“You think so?” Sherlock replied, archly. He stood up and began pacing; everyone in the group relaxed into their chairs, preparing to be wowed by Sherlockian logic. “We're probably four of the most highly-trained psychics in the world; there's no record anywhere of a psychic attempting to branch out of his own specialty.” He paused and looked at Sally, almost apologetically. “Or hers. Not to mention that we have a former military doctor amongst our numbers, and two members of a paramilitary organization, all of whom are excellent marksmen.”

“Unlike Sherlock,” John interjected, smirking. “You should have seen how he handled the SIG at the pool.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and focused on John. “Do you _really_ think I could have taken down the remainder of Jim Moriarty's organization without acquiring some firearms training, John?” He was silent for several seconds before begrudgingly admitting, “I'm nowhere _near_ your level of expertise and I expect both Sally and Greg could out-shoot me, but I can still hit a target.”

Sally didn't even try to hide her smirk.

“The fact remains, we have put more effort into training ourselves as both psychics and warriors than any group of people on the planet,” Sherlock continued. “With my deductive reasoning and your more...practical skills, we're a formidable team.” He gestured toward the papers. “Almost none of these people have military training. They're the disenchanted; people who's gifts nearly drove them insane. Over half of them have spent time committed to asylums. Very few of them have a good grasp on reality. I think we can take them.”

“ I'd question _your_ grasp on reality,” Sally said, frowning. “Afghanistan may not _technically_ be a war zone anymore, Sherlock, but there's still people being blown to pieces there every day. Plus, it's the desert. It's dangerous on it's own even _without_ the crazy men with guns.” She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I don't want to be the reason Harry starts drinking again.”

John had expected this, but it didn't make it hurt any less. Because Sally was right: If something happened to her, there was every chance that Harry would turn to the bottle again. If she didn't outright attempt to kill herself.

To John's surprise, it was Sherlock who belayed this. “Harriet has dealt with the reality of loved ones in a war zone before.” He sat down very abruptly and went quiet for several minutes before very softly saying, “Not that I couldn't empathize with her. Both John and I hold the same risk.”

He pointedly did not look at Sally, Greg, or John, instead electing to watch the soundless telly. It was just as well, as the three of them were gaping at him in stunned amazement.

“Anyway,” John finally said, drawing his eyes away from his lover, “Mycroft wants our answer by Friday. I think we should decide by tomorrow night if possible; lord knows we're going to have to be absolutely ready to ship out the moment we give him a yes. If we decide to go, we'll have a lot to prepare.”

Sally looked him in the eye, studying him, before nodding. “I'll talk to Harry, and we'll decide together,” she said.

“I don't need to remind you that large chunks of this are classified,” John replied. “I don't want to give Mycroft reason to bug your flat as well.”

Sally grinned, although she still looked somewhat sick to her stomach. “I'll be careful. But I'm not making a decision like this without involving her.”

John nodded. Sally was really very good for his sister.

She made her excuses then and left, leaving the remainder of her beer on the table. It was unusual; Sally didn't drink at her flat because of Harry's history so she usually made a point to finish what alcohol she could have on Tuesday nights. It spoke of how seriously she was taking this, and John nodded again. Sally was bright, and a good police officer. She'd be an asset to their team there.

They all waited to speak until after they hear the door to 221 closed behind Sally. Then Greg, who had barely spoken during the entire conversation, turned toward John with the fires of Hell in his eyes.

“Just what in the bloody _hell_ are you on about?” he demanded, standing up. “Taking errands to bloody _Afghanistan_ for Mycroft bloody _Holmes_ like it's a normal fucking _favor_ , like he needs you to pick someone up at the bloody _airport_?”

“Have you read it?” John asked, quietly. The urge to shoot upright and confront his friend face-to-face, chest-to-chest, was overwhelming, but John knew it wouldn't help matters. “They plan to come _here_ , Greg. If we don't go there, they'll be here anyway, right here in London, on our doorstep.” He took a large breath, letting it out slowly before standing up. He was considerably shorter than Greg, but he stood firm in front of him. “I'd rather confront them in the desert than here. Less collateral damage.” Greg didn't say anything in return, but his resolve was clearly crumbling, so John continued. “We'd like to have Sally and you with us. Out of everyone on the planet, Sherlock and I trust the two of you the most, and I think we stand a much larger chance of succeeding if you're there with us. But even if you decide not to go, _we're_ going.”

John knew what he looked and sounded like at that moment: a soldier boy, ready to die for Queen and Country. He didn't care. London was his home, and he'd fight for the life he'd built there with Sherlock and his friends. 

Plus, it'd be nice to go back. Just for a bit. But he'd never admit _that_ to anyone aloud. Although he was pretty sure Sherlock had figured it out already.

Greg exhaled, shakily. “I'm a cop, John. Not a soldier.”

John smiled. It was a small, mostly humorless smile. “You're a Detective-Inspector for the London Met, Greg. The two aren't so dissimilar. Especially when you're a Detective-Inspector who consorts with Sherlock Holmes.”

Greg let out a bark of laughter. He turned, grabbing his beer off the table and finishing it off in one gulp before turning to his friends.

“I'll do it,” he said, shaking his head. “God help me, I'll do it.”


	2. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to apologize that this didn't come very soon after the posting of the first chapter. I'm 27 years old in the United States and I never went to university, which means I'm basically broke as sin (although, the plus side is that I don't have any student loan debt under my belt. Silver linings). I'm dealing with a lot right now, including a (very likely) potential Asperger's diagnosis and trying to scrape the money together for my husband and I to make rent. This eventually led to a massive panic attack that had me out for the count for about 12 hours – which means no writing was done. I'll try to be more on the ball for this next chapter, okay?
> 
> After this, things are going to move very quickly. Lots of warzone talk: I swear I'm not trying intentionally to emulate Two Two One Bravo Baker, but it may wind up sounding similar at points. There will also be Sherlock in fatigues, so there's that.
> 
> All of you who are reading this and leaving kudos (and everyone who commented on JB Rhine): you're all saints among men. I love you all; you're a very bright point in an otherwise dismal phase of my life and I thank you all for it.

“ _Goddamnit_ _all!_ ” John exclaimed, his fist connecting solidly with the steel of a skip. The skin over his knuckles split open, bleeding, but he ignored it in favor of ducking back to avoid the sharp eyes of the people at the end of the alleyway.

“You can't expect to get it on the first try, John,” Sherlock chided him as the two of them quickly departed the scene of their “crime.”

“That was _not_ my first try,” John grumbled. “That was my _tenth_ try and I _still_ can't seem to tap into electrical sources. It doesn't make _sense_ ; I'm not tone-deaf.”

“Mycroft's research has indicated that tone-deafness isn't the only thing that can preclude gestalt ability,” Sherlock advised him. They were out in the open air now, so the taller man stopped his friend in his tracks, grabbing his left hand and examining the knuckles. “Not broken, but we should go back to Baker Street and clean you up.”

John yanked his damaged hand back to him, glaring at Sherlock. “I'm _fully aware_ of what I should do. _Doctor_ Watson, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes heavenward as he hailed a taxi. “You take the opportunity to remind me on a near-daily basis.” They climbed into a cab and, out of necessity, Sherlock resorted to telepathic communication. _Perhaps we should attempt to find an actual generator rather than tapping into the electrical systems of random greengrocers. Just because they have a walk-in cooler doesn't mean they're equipped for our needs, John._

John glared at him. _And where, exactly, are we going to find a relatively quiet, powerful generator in_ _ **London**_ _? Before Friday?_

Even Sherlock looked stymied at that question, and the two of them didn't speak until they got back to the flat.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

It was very nearly bedtime for both Greg and John (heaven only knows when Sherlock was planning to get to bed, if at all) when the bell to the flat rang. John frowned, shooting a look at both of his erstwhile flatmates before dashing down the stairs to answer the door. It wouldn't do to have Mrs. Hudson woken up after she'd taken her herbal soothers.

To his surprise, Sally and Harry stood outside. It was raining, making the both of them look completely miserable.

“Jesus,” he muttered, looking up to the sky even as he opened the door wider for the two of them to enter. “Come on in, then.”

The three of them trooped up the stairs, no one speaking aloud until they entered 221B, although Harry looked like she _wanted_ to say something when she noticed John's bandaged-up hand.

“Sally,” Sherlock said, nodding at her. His nose wrinkled slightly as he took in Harry. ”Harriet. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I swear to _God_ ,” Harry said, pulling off her coat and shaking out damp blonde curls. “One of these days, Sherlock Holmes, I'm going to snap and kill you in your sleep if you don't stop calling me by my full name.”

“He does it on purpose, Harry, just ignore him,” John advised her. He turned to find Sherlock, looking affronted.

“There is absolutely no _possible_ way that your sister could kill me in my sleep,” Sherlock said. John sighed.

“Right. Moving along to _important_ matters,” John said, gesturing Harry and Sally to sit near Greg on the couch. Greg shifted over automatically, nose still buried in a book he'd borrowed from John. He wanted to finish it before Friday. John winced: he'd accidentally pulled that fact from Greg's mind without his permission.

To cover his unease, he went about preparing tea: a whole pot of it, since there were so many of them about at the moment. It allowed the two women to put their jackets away and settle themselves on the couch, and Greg to reach a stopping point in the novel and set it aside. By the time he came back from the kitchen and served everyone, they were ready to have this discussion.

“Sally's told me what she could,” Harry began, frowning at the need for secrecy. “I know it's to do with you lot and your...abilities.” John knew that she wasn't jealous of them, specifically, but that she wished she was special somehow ( _special enough to deserve someone as amazing as Sally –_ John cut off her thought trail, although a part of him was intrigued at how seriously Harry seemed to be taking their relationship). “I just want to know what kind of danger Sally's going to be in.”

John sighed as he sat down in a chair at the table, facing the couch. Sherlock had already moved over into his normal seat, spinning the chair around to regard their visitors. He said nothing, keeping his gray eyes focused on John's sister. Harry had plenty of practice in deflecting Sherlockian discomfort, or she'd probably be unnerved.

John sighed again, bringing his elbows up to the table and steepling them in an unconscious mimicry of his lover. He tapped his fingertips against his lips before continuing the discussion.

“Has she explained _why_ we need to go?” John asked her, curiously.

“Something about psychic terrorists,” Harry replied. She focused her gaze on her brother; she knew that John wouldn't intentionally mislead her.

John nodded slowly. “She'd probably be in a great deal of danger, but no more than myself, Sherlock, or Greg will be.” He glanced at Sherlock and then back to Harry. “You know I'll do my best to make sure that we all come back alive.”

Harry worried at her lower lip for several minutes, thinking. About halfway through her hand snaked out and grabbed Sally's; at this point John caught a flash of thought from both of them that was near-identical. His spine straightened out of reflex.

“You don't have the time right now, either of you,” he said, sternly frowning at them. “Maybe save it for a happy return?”

Both women flushed; the other two men looked at him curiously as he continued. “You wouldn't be able to go through all of the procedures by Friday anyway. Best not to rush things just because you feel a death sentence hanging over your head.”

Sherlock's expression cleared and he nodded his agreement; Greg still looked confused.

“I might mention,” Sherlock interjected, “that Mycroft has included a _very_ generous compensation to the lot of us that would definitely aid in any impending nuptials.” Greg's expression cleared as well, and he stared at Sally in bemused awe.

Harry blushed scarlet, letting her lower lip (nearly bloodied) fall out of her mouth. “I'd not mentioned anything yet,” she said, apologetically, turning to Sally.

“Me neither,” Sally murmured. Greg grinned, an almost giddy expression crossing his face that made John think that perhaps he was getting some emotional feedback. Almost absentmindedly, John reached out and cut off some of the flow for his friend and continued speaking, not fully realizing what he'd just done, although he did take note of Sherlock sitting bolt upright in front of him.

“If you decide to come with us, Sally, this potential wedding will still be here,” John said, reasonably. “There's no reason to rush it; what if it's a mistake?”

Harry looked cross before her expression softened. “I suppose I have a track record of rushing into things,” she admitted. She turned to Sally. “If you want to go, I can't stop you. I _can't_. You are who you are and I wouldn't change that. You're a cop, and you've always been dedicated to the whole 'protect and serve' bit. Just...try to come back to me, okay?”

Sally nodded, squeezing Harry's hand. She was quiet for several moments before her gaze became focused. She turned it toward John and nodded.

“I'm in,” she said. “But I reserve the right to curse you to kingdom come if this all goes pear-shaped.”

John grinned. “You'll have company, I'm sure.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Mycroft had to know that they'd come to a consensus, but he made absolutely no contact with them before Friday at 5 p.m., which John appreciated. It gave them a solid forty hours to pack, make arrangements, and practice with the gestalt.

Sally, Greg and Sherlock all had varying measures of success using a car engine to extend their telepathic abilities as well as their own individual talents. John still couldn't seem to get the hang of it, although he could definitely _sense_ the power available there. He understood the theory, but for some reason he couldn't seem to put the path between himself and his telepathic or telekinetic abilities through the engine. 

It was frustrating as all hell, and he remained boringly and mundanely average at telekinesis. His limit seemed to be the car they'd used to practice on, although lifting it had felt a bit like stretching unused muscles. Perhaps with practice his strength would grow?

Moot point, as the four of them had almost no time to shower and pack, let alone practice with esoteric psychic methods.

Greg was busy arranging for leave for himself and Sally; luckily both of them were due several weeks' worth of holiday time as they both tended toward being workaholics, so as long as this little trip didn't take more than a month they'd be fine.

John hoped it wouldn't take more than a month. 

The taxi pulled up to Mycroft's office at 4:45. They didn't actually have a whole lot with them, as they'd correctly assumed that Mycroft would arrange provisions. This left them with curiously empty hands as they presented themselves to the British Government.

“I could have sent a car,” Mycroft said, mildly, as the four of them filed into his office. 

“Then why didn't you?” Sherlock replied. He seemed bored, eyes darting languidly around Mycroft's office (although what he could possibly deduce from what Mycroft allowed the public to view was beyond John's capabilities at the moment).

Mycroft rolled his eyes but declined to reply, instead standing up.

“You're sure? All of you?” he asked, looking each of them in the face for their acknowledgment.

“We've already discussed this, Mycroft,” John pointed out. “I know you've the tapes.”

Mycroft nodded to the group. Without a word, he led them out of his office.

To _where_...well, that was anyone's guess.


	3. CUPS, WANDS, AND HOLY MEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna tell all of you guys that you're awesome. *thumbs up* Seriously. You guys rock my world.
> 
> I had entirely too much fun with this chapter, even if it is basically one giant infodump. I really dig gun-talk. I just might have a bit of a military kink. Which theoretically explains my obsession with John Watson. 
> 
> I'm not entirely certain what my update schedule is going to be because of my aforementioned personal issues, but I do plan on finishing this as well as several other stories in this universe. If I'd realized what problems I was going to have before I started posting this, I'd have waited to post it until I'd more written. Sorry. >.>
> 
> Oh, and the tarot information is all relatively factual. I dig me some tarot cards and use them all the time, although I'm partial to the Gilded Tarot. Greg has a Rider-Waite deck, which you'll probably recognize as the so-called “standard” tarot deck that most new-agers use.

    

Sally and Harry made a night of it before she left. Harry bought her a new notebook to take with her, a small one that could withstand being folded up small or shoved into a constraining pocket if needed. It came with a rather nice fountain pen that Sally was almost positive would clog up the moment they set foot in Afghanistan, but it was a nice gesture all the same.

Besides, just because she was waltzing off to a war zone didn't mean that she could stop recording her precogs. 

They had a rather fabulous dinner together in front of their telly and chased it with sparkling apple juice and made love on the floor near their fireplace. And when Harry cried, Sally held her close and rocked with her, hoping to _God_ that she'd make it back from all of this.

Sally knew herself rather well these days. She wasn't the type to wax poetic, nor make hyperbolic statements. So when she thought to herself, quietly, that she was starting to understand the pain the soldiers felt when they left their loved ones, she _meant_ it. She reached up and touched the window of the car, ignoring the pointed look John was sending her – the one that meant he'd _heard_ that.

She'd just kissed her goodbye an hour ago, but already she missed Harry. She imagined that it was probably the weather doing it to her; another rainy London Friday, a prelude to a truly _shitty_ weekend that would end in tears for most of London's finest party-goers. Tears or, at least, melancholy.

Sally could relate.

Both Greg and John nosed in on her at once, both reaching out and clamping a hand around either of her arms at about the same moment.

“Knock it off,” Greg advised. “You're _depressing_ me, and I don't fancy a plane flight tasting ashes.”

Sally rolled her eyes and turned toward Sherlock as the other two men backed off. He offered her a small, tight smile; without really meaning to, his eyes darted toward John.

Sherlock, she realized, was worried about what was going to happen to them. Not because he thought they were in any more or less danger than usual, but because he was succumbing to a perfectly normal moment of human weakness. He was worried something would happen to John, or that something would happen to him and John would have to suffer.

She raised her eyebrow at him and he rolled his eyes, allowing his gaze to turn back toward the rain outside.

If one of them had to go, she hoped it was Sherlock. John could _understand_ grief, could deal with it in his own way (even though she'd never want _either_ of them to deal with it, if she could help it). Sherlock would be absolutely _shattered_ if something happened to his – God, what could you even _call_ them? Boyfriends? Lovers? None of the usual words seemed to fit, and soulmate seemed a bit too trite for either of them.

John was staring at her, his jaw slightly slack, and she smiled at him. He, naturally, would know _exactly_ what she was thinking. Although why he'd be surprised that she approved of...whatever it was the two of them had, after the last few months, was beyond her.

Greg was looking at her through narrowed eyes as well. His hand, out of habit, flexed slightly and went for the inside pocket of his jacket before he stopped himself. He kept something there, something sentimental that meant a lot to him. What, Sally had no idea.

“Sally is merely feeling melancholy, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, his tone sardonic. “No need to take them out right now; she'll get over it.”

Greg's face flushed. John looked at him knowingly, and Sally realized she was the only person in the car who had no idea what was going on.

“Right, distract me,” she said, sitting up. “We've got another half hour until we get to the base, at least. What's in your pocket?”

Greg's blush deepened, but he extracted the parcel from his jacket pocket nonetheless. It was rectangular, and wrapped in a plain blue cotton fabric. Slowly, he peeled back the fabric and offered the contents toward her.

“Tarot cards?” she said, her voice quizzical as she reached out to touch them.

“They were my mum's,” Greg admitted. “She was a powerful precog, could _really_ fine-tune it.”

“And you can use them?” Sally asked.

“A little bit,” he replied, defensively. “But mostly they just...I dunno, make me less anxious.”

“Hmmm,” John said, leaning back in his seat with both of his hands in front of him – an unconscious mimicry of Sherlock that he didn't seem to realize, but that was easily apparent to everyone in the car with him. _Including_ Sherlock. “That would indicate that you have some sort of precognitive ability.”

“Probably,” Greg said, shrugging. “It's certainly not _easy_ , and I can only ever do it with the cards, so I usually leave it well enough alone.”

Sally eyed them for a while before she leaned forward again. “Go on, then. Read my cards.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “That's not really how you do it. You have to shuffle them, first of all; part of tarot is tapping into the unconscious mind of the person being read. And I don't _do_ readings for people; it just helps me focus on individual situations.”

Sally raised her eyebrow. Greg sighed and shuffled the cards in his hands, flicking through them quickly, his eyes scanning the cards. It was a natural, easy sort of thing; something he'd grown up with. And his eyes were moving nearly as quickly as Sherlock's did when he was deducing.

Sherlock looked impressed.

Greg pulled a card out and handed it to Sherlock. “Ace of Swords. It's your card, see; stands for the application of intellect and pursuit of justice. Among other things,” and at that he grinned. “It almost always comes paired with the Tower when you're about to run off and do something stupid.” Then he frowned. “For a long time it felt like a lonely card, but see, you're the sword, and someone's holding it up, so it's not so lonely after all.” Greg's eyes darted toward John.

Sherlock looked very nearly stunned as he flipped the card over in his hand, examining it from all sides before passing it back to Greg. He didn't say anything to indicate how he felt, but Sally got the impression that he was touched.

Greg had gone back to flipping through the cards, pulling one out seemingly at random, which he held out to John. “Strength. I knew it the moment I met you, actually. Unshakeable resolve, patience, compassion, control. And look at it: the woman holding back the lion. _Literally_ taming the beast.” He grinned at both Sherlock and John. “Pretty obvious what symbolism I was going for there.”

John flushed as he inspected the card. “You're not the first person who's associated me with this one.”

Greg shrugged. “A lot of times a person just has an affinity with a certain card, and it'll come to the forefront whenever someone's doing a reading about them. Not uncommon, actually.”

“You know an awful lot about this for an empath,” Sally pointed out.

Greg grinned. “Like I said, my mum was a precog. Actually, most of my family's..you know, _talented_. Like us. They're all gypsies. Dad...” he trailed off briefly before coughing and continuing. “Dad was the only normal one of the lot.”

Sherlock grinned, smugly, as Sally choked out, “You come from a family of _gypsies?_ ”

“You think _that's_ odd, you should meet my sister some time. She's crazier than Sherlock, and clairvoyant too.”

John chuckled as he handed back the card. “So that's why you're so good at handling him, huh?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “He doesn't _handle_ me, John.”

“Yeah, that'd be _your_ job, mate,” Greg replied, a smart-ass grin playing on his face as he began shuffling the cards again. “Yours, though, Sally...your card's _real_ interesting. I didn't mean to pick one for you, it just kept showing up.” He pulled one out and handed it to her.

She stared at it. “The nine of wands? Really?”

Greg nodded. “Do you know your minor arcana very well?”

“Not really, no,” Sally said, shaking her head. “I don't even have my own deck. It was never my thing.”

Greg smiled. “The nine of wands always assumes the worst in everyone. But on the flip side, it doesn't mean anything bad by it. It has an honest desire to protect those around it, and it'll keep going even when it's mortally exhausted. It's a good, human card; I think it fits you.”

She looked at it. “This really _is_ a lonely card,” she murmured. “He looks haunted, defensive.”

“He is,” Greg said. “But it's not a bad card. The nine of wands isn't predestined to be alone or something; he's just got a job to do. Mum always said that people with the nine of wands as their card were good at compartmentalizing.”

Sally handed it back to him. “I'm not sure I like that card.”

Greg grinned. “Not surprised.”

“What's _your_ card?” Sherlock surprised everyone by asking. 

“ _Huh_ ,” John said, raising his eyebrow. “Wouldn't have pegged you as putting any faith in tarot.”

“I _don't_ ,” Sherlock replied. Then a smile began creeping across his face. “Unless, of course, the tarot deck in question is being wielded by an honest-to-God psychic, in which case, the results could be... _interesting_.”

“Wielded, he says,” Greg said, laughing. “They're not _weapons_ , Sherlock.”

Sherlock turned his gaze toward the older man. “They could be, in the right situation,” he replied. “Answer the question, Lestrade.”

Greg shifted, uncomfortably. “Mum always said this was my card. I've never really thought about it, to be honest,” he said, handing Sherlock a card.

“Hmmmm,” Sherlock said, running the card in between two fingers. “Establishing law and bringing order out of chaos. Leadership. It's also a fatherhood card,” he continued, squinting at it. He smirked. “I suppose it's appropriate.”

“What card is it?” Sally found herself asking. Sherlock flipped it over so that Sally and John could see it.

“The Emperor,” John said, trying hard not to laugh. Sally found herself giggling, as well, and she put her hands over her mouth.

“Hmmm,” Sherlock hummed back, amused. “The king on his throne.”

“God, shut _up_ ,” Greg said, snatching the card back from him. “Your brother's the _Hierophant_ , so I'd be careful what you say about _me_.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “I'm not afraid of the Hierophant, _Emperor_ Lestrade. The Hierophant has books and learning; I have a _sword_.”

“Sword's no good if it's dull,” Greg replied, shuffling the cards absentmindedly in his hand as he glared at the younger man.

“ _Excuse_ me,” Sally interjected, before Sherlock could get another jibe in. “Exactly _what_ is a Hierophant? Some sort of...elephant hybrid?”

John let out a laugh. “Oh _God_ , can Mycroft hear us in here? _Please_ tell me he can hear us in here.”

“I've no idea; remind me to bring this up next time he mentions his diet,” Sherlock said, smirking.

“ _Not_ answering my question,” Sally said, beginning to get irritated.

“Right,” Greg said, a grin playing on his face as well. “Well, the Hierophant is the card about being dedicated to a cause. Back in the day, before they were trying to pull the religious symbolism from the cards, the Hierophant and the High Priestess were called the Pope and the Papess. The Hierophant card is about working from within the system to bring the change you desire.”

Sally blinked. “And you think this applies to Mycroft Holmes.”

“I don't think, I _know_ ,” Greg replied. Then he flushed and looked at Sherlock. “Apparently when you live with Sherlock for too long you start channeling him, sorry.”

John snorted, and then sat up in his seat. “Heads up,” he advised them. “It looks like we're here.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Mycroft was nowhere in sight, but his PA (who's name, everyone knew, was _not_ Anthea, but who introduced herself as such anyway) was. She barely looked up at them from her phone – now a shiny new iPhone rather than a BlackBerry – as she boredly informed them, “I'm to outfit you for your trip.” No other explanation was given as she turned and began heading into the squat, ugly building in front of them.

“Is she _always_ like this?” Sally asked John, as the group began following the PA. John shrugged as everyone leaned in to listen to his response.

“As far as I can tell,” he said. “Shield tighter than a chastity belt, but she'd have to be on her game to be Mycroft's assistant, wouldn't she?”

“Hmmm,” Sherlock replied, narrowing his eyes at her. “My brother's assistant is a clairvoyant. Even if she _weren't_ on her game, her particular talents would be useful to Mycroft.”

“If you keep talking about me, you'll never find out,” Anthea called back to them, still bored. _God_ , John thought to himself. He didn't know who's boredom was more destructive in the long-term: Anthea's or Sherlock's. The group hastened to keep up with her.

Greg looked around as they were led into the building of the anonymous-looking (but totally secure, Mycroft had assured them) facility. It looked completely deserted, and was made out of some sort of gray, utterly _boring_ composite stone material. It appeared to be one story high.

Once inside, Anthea led them into an elevator, which made a lie out of that appearance. The elevator went down what felt like several floors before stopping abruptly and opening to reveal a room with a table and a set of doors.

“All possessions and outerwear go on to the table,” Anthea said, gesturing. “Any physical identification is contraindicated. Pictures are allowed; mobile phones are _not_.” She looked up at them for the first time, something resembling a smile flickering over her mouth. “We will hold on to these effects until your return.”

It was with great reluctance that Sherlock parted with his phone and coat. John was smirking as Sherlock made a theatrical display of parting with these two prized possessions, even going so far as to unwind his scarf as if it were some sort of concession on his part.

The rest of them complied with the request peacefully. Greg leaned over and whispered to John, “If I didn't already _know_ he was gay...”

John bit his lip to stifle his laughter as he put his wallet and the keys to 221B on the table. 

Once they'd emptied their pockets and removed their coats, gloves and scarves, Anthea gestured to the doors opposite the elevator. “Into the next room, if you please.”

Sherlock began to swear the moment they entered it. “I forgot about this bit,” he said, in between swear words. “Good _lord_.”

John smirked and entered the first shower stall. “Come now, Sherlock, you know how important proper hygiene is. Especially as we're unlikely to get another shower until we get back.”

Sherlock snarled at his lover as he took the stall next to him; he was tall enough that everyone could make out the very top of his head over the metal walls. “You know very well that this is _decontamination_ , John.”

John grinned, even though no one could see him. “Yes, well, we may as well enjoy it while we have it. Good God, you're _really_ not going to like the inoculations, are you?” While he said this, he took in his surroundings; it was a standard tiled shower compartment, with a small ledge holding shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. A shelf against the wall held a towel and a razor; above the shelf was a mirror. The whole shower area was sunk into the ground slightly, creating a raised lip where one opened the door. This, he thought, was probably to prevent water from flooding the main room.

Greg and Sally laughed at John's comment as they entered stalls across from him and Sherlock.

Anthea's voice echoed hollowly against the tiles, once they'd all picked showers. “Please push your clothing out from under the stall door, and shower. You will have ten minutes. Once you are finished, please change into the clothing provided.” There was the sound of her heels clacking against the tiles and then she exited the room.

John, the most used to these sorts of procedures, began to strip methodically, folding his clothes into a small pile on top of his shoes. Once he had a neat pile, he shoved the lot under the door and began to shower. The shampoo and conditioner provided smelled medicinal, as did the body wash; Sherlock was right, naturally. Any diseases they could be carrying around with them, used to London as they were, could prove fatal to the indigenous Afghani population.

While they showered there were muffled noises in the rest of the room; probably their clothing being bagged and tagged and fresh provided. About halfway through, John glanced up and yelped, instinctively covering himself with his soaped-up hands.

“Oh, relax, John, I'm not looking at _you_ ,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes as he stared out into the room. He'd somehow climbed up so that his head now reached a solid two feet above the walls of his shower stall, and was looking at whatever it was the interlopers were doing outside of them. He wrinkled his nose. “Besides, it's nothing I've not seen before; just this morning –“

“ _Too much bloody information_ ,” Greg growled from across the room. Sally laughed in response. Sherlock turned his eyes toward them and smirked.

“Lestrade, that's a _very_ interesting scar. Care to impart how you –“

“Eyes to yourself,” John said, rather mildly he thought, considering the situation. “Come on, Sherlock, finish decontam.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes but complied. 

After ten minutes had passed, Anthea's voice rang out again. “Time's up. Please dry off. There is a set of clothing just in front of your stall. Please change into it.”

John was entirely unsurprised to find a set of desert fatigues in his exact size where he'd left his jeans and jumper. He sighed. “Here we go again,” he replied, warily. He was actually surprised to find that the fatigues identified him as Captain Watson of the Royal Army; surely this was _identification_? Briefly, he thanked Mycroft in his head; he wouldn't be required to wear that bright red cross that indicated he was a member of the medical corps. Damn thing was nothing but a bloody _target_ to insurgents, and most medical personnel learned fairly early on to rip the patches off before going into a combat zone.

They'd included socks, a pair of standard briefs, and a brown undershirt. A new pair of boots topped the whole outfit off; he was entirely unsurprised to find that in his front pocket was a pair of dog tags. The metal circles clinked against each other and he sighed as he pulled them on, tucking them on underneath his uniform shirt. There was a hat; he tucked it in at the back of his trousers. There was no need to wear a hat indoors.

“Please put the dog tags in your front left pocket on,” Anthea's voice called out. John wondered if she'd taken acting lessons to sound so thoroughly disinterested all the time. It was almost impressive. “Once you're dressed, please exit the stalls and come through the doors on this end of the room to begin your briefing. Mycroft is waiting.”

“Mycroft is waiting,” Sherlock mimicked, high-pitched, under his breath. John chuckled.

“Come on, then, you lot,” John said. “Best not to keep the Hierophant waiting.” He pushed the stall door open.

“The Hierophant can wait 'til kingdom comes for all I care,” Sherlock said, grumpily. He hated public showers, and he _especially_ hated the fact that he couldn't put any gel or mousse into his hair to tame it down. Right now he looked like nothing so much as a cotton swab, a great dark cotton swab. His hair stuck out at all angles and John could hear Sally laughing outright from her position on the other side of the room.

John was a bit distracted over how well Sherlock fit into the uniform he'd been given. His insignia was that of a sergeant and his name badge did, in fact, say HOLMES, although John would be honestly surprised if his dog tags indicated that his first name was Sherlock.

“They _do_ , actually, but I'm assuming I'm to keep that to myself,” Sherlock said, sardonically, answering John's unasked question. “No doubt they have identities all lined up for us, but the tags _are_ supposed to identify us if we die.”

John shrugged and turned to look at his friends.

Sally looked even more disgruntled in her uniform – sergeant, as well, and her chest proclaimed her DONOVAN – and John allowed himself a brief moment of pity in her direction. The army had never quite got the hang of making battle uniforms for women and most of them wound up suffering through men's uniforms. Which, naturally, never fit proper.

Greg looked quite fit in his, actually, and John raised his eyebrow. “Next time you go to the pub on the pull, you might consider wearing something similar,” he commented, smirking. Greg rolled his eyes; John noted that his rank was that of a staff sergeant and that his name was LESTRADE. 

“Looks like we're to be a squad on patrol,” John said, slowly. “I'm a captain, Greg's a staff sergeant, and you two are sergeants.”

Sherlock looked surprised. “I'm honestly surprised that they've decided to make us out to be members of the army. I thought they'd go for nationals.”

John snorted. “If you grew a beard, you _might_ be able to pass for an Afghani, Sherlock, but none of _us_ could. Especially not Sally.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes as the four of them began heading toward the opposite end of the room. “Theatrical makeup can change your appearance easily enough, and as women in Afghanistan generally conceal their bodies and faces, hiding Sally would be nearly no problem.”

“I'm not wearing a _burqa_ ,” Sally interjected, angrily, as they pushed through the doors.

Sherlock swung toward Sally, a smirk playing on his lips. “You wouldn't be wearing a _burqa_ ,” he replied. “You would be wearing a _chadri_.”

“I'm going to kill him,” Sally commented.

“Please refrain from doing so until _after_ you return,” Mycroft said, from his position at the head of a longish table. “Once you've completed this mission, I've no control over what happens to my little brother.”

“Now _that's_ a lie,” Greg said, raising his eyebrow. It had been years since Greg and Mycroft had seen each other in person, other than at Sherlock's funeral (which had been brief and had involved no actual speech).

Mycroft smirked and gestured for everyone to sit.

As they did, the doors opened again and Anthea walked in. She handed something to Mycroft and then turned to regard the four of them. Four men in suits walked in, each carrying a laden pack, which they set down next to each one of them before leaving the room.

“This is all very theatrical,” Sherlock said, wrinkling his nose.

Mycroft eyed his brother, very obviously biting his tongue. John, however, had no such compunctions and laughed aloud.

“Really, Sherlock,” John said, nudging his lover's arm with his own. “That's like the pot calling the kettle black.”

“That doesn't make _sense_ ,” Sherlock replied, glaring at John. “Kettles come in several colors.” Then _something_ seemed to make sense to him because he froze and his lips twitched.

The entire table was silent for several seconds before Sally let out a hysterical-sounding giggle, which naturally meant that Greg, John, and Sherlock joined her in her laughter. Mycroft rolled his eyes and looked at his assistant; Anthea merely smirked.

“While I'm _glad_ you're all getting along so well,” Mycroft said, impatiently. 

“Right, the briefing,” John interrupted, still laughing. “I can see how you'd _hate_ your schedule to be off by ten seconds.”

This made Sherlock laugh even _harder_. It was Buckingham Palace all over again, except Sherlock was with a group of people he knew and trusted.

Mycroft sighed.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

“Your kits contain fairly standard equipment for desert-bound troops,” Anthea said, several minutes later after Mycroft had got them calmed down. She was standing in front of a projection screen, which displayed the equipment, laid out for them to see. It was honestly the same sort of briefing John had been given in basic training, and he was bored by it. “You each have two changes of clothing and underclothing, a cold-weather jacket, a collapsible shovel, survival knives, a one-man tent and sleeping bag, matches, several lengths of paracord, an electric torch, and two weeks worth of meals, ready to eat, and a basic hygiene kit.” She looked up and eyed Sally. “There are some _additional_ products in your kit.”

Sally blushed.

“You have also each been issued a canteen and a camelbak. It is recommended that you top these off every time you find a potable source of water, and that you attempt to spread your water consumption out as far as possible.”

_Boring_ , John thought at Sherlock, in a near-perfect imitation of the younger man's voice. Sherlock's lips twitched in humor.

“Your helmets are lined with a specific shielding which is not only bulletproof but psychic-proof,” Anthea said. “Research indicates that psychic bonds can overcome this shielding, so you two ought to have no problems.” She indicated Sherlock and John. “But it will protect you from psychic assault and it should make you appear to be completely normal and non-parapsychic to any outside investigation.”

John found himself impressed.

“You will each be issued a firearm. Captain Watson will be given the standard-issue SIG Saur L106A1; as the other three of you are masquerading as enlisted personnel you will be given HK416 assault rifles.”

“I trust you know how to shoot assault rifles,” Mycroft interjected, looking at Greg and Sally. Sherlock smirked; that his brother took it for granted that he knew how to shoot an assault weapon was telling. He also found it very interesting that not-Anthea referred to John by his rank, but indicated that the other three of them were masquerading. An affection for the military, then.

“We've trained on them, yes,” Greg said. “Although not that particular model before. It's not generally...used here, is it?”

“You'll have a chance to fire them before your flight leaves tomorrow morning,” Mycroft replied. “And no, it's not generally issued to British troops, if that's what you're asking.”

“Won't that blow cover?” John asked.

“Not so much,” Mycroft said. “It's a good long-range weapon, and it's what's needed in this case. Not to mention, we _so_ often wind up borrowing inventory from our American brethren...if our enemy even _has_ a weapons expert, it's something you could easily have come by as a member of the British army.” Then he gestured for Anthea to continue.

“Captain Watson will also be issued a medical kit. There will be stimulants and depressants in them as well, to be used at your discretion,” and for the first time since John had ever met her, she fixed her eyes on his and was decidedly _not_ bored. This, then, was important to make note of.

John nodded.

“Your record indicates that you spent some time on the Met's bomb squad,” Anthea said, directing her gaze toward Sally. Sally choked slightly and nodded.

“Yes, for a bit,” Sally replied. 

“You will be issued an explosives kit,” Anthea said. Sally stared at her, mouth agape, as the other woman continued. “There are detailed instructions included.” She glanced down at her phone again, and John realized for the first time that she had everything stored on there and was reading it off to them from it. “It's C4, so it won't go off without a very specific set of circumstances.”

“Right,” Sally said, shaking her head, as if to clear it, and nodding. “Right, I can handle that.”

Anthea let a ghost of a smile pass over her face before she dropped her eyes down to her phone again. She pointed to Greg. “You will be issued the only active communication device, which has a direct line back to Mister Holmes.” She gestured toward Mycroft, in case anyone failed to understand that she was talking about the better-connected Holmes brother. “Everyone, however, will be issued a PDA with encrypted internet access. Do _not_ lose it.”

John wanted to laugh; he'd been right, lord, he _had_. This girl was _sharp_ , for all she pretended to be a dotty, phone-obsessed idiot. No _wonder_ Mycroft liked keeping her around. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Question,” he said, leaning forward. The military man in him came out in force. “Are we to be issued any navigation equipment? Maps? Compasses, GPS? Even paper and pen? Bullets?”

“I'll make sure it happens,” Anthea replied, calmly. “The ammunition will be included when you're issued your weapons.”

John nodded and then continued. “What if this takes more than two weeks?”

Anthea smirked. “There is a resupply station in Jalalabad, near where you'll be going. If you find yourself needing more supplies, your needs will be met there. This will be included in your copy of the supposed briefing, Captain Watson.”

“I'm to get a copy, am I?” John said, grinning. “Isn't that _fancy_.”

“You're nominally in charge of the squad,” Mycroft pointed out, thankfully not insulting John's intelligence. The mood in the room was one of fairly good, if slightly hysterical, humor, and John would ruin it the moment one of the Holmeses insinuated he wasn't, to some extent, intelligent. “I know you've figured out that much; Detective-Inspector Lestrade is to be communications officer, which means he will also be issued a radio. It will very suddenly develop a malfunction if anyone actually attempts to use it, however.”

Greg grinned.

Mycroft continued his explanation. “As already indicated, Sergeant Donovan is to be your explosives expert, and Sherlock will be navigation. A proper squad, as it were.”

John's smile grew. “A proper squad.” He turned toward Sherlock. “You may need to get a haircut.” Sherlock's eyes narrowed as John continued. “We're all going to have to, actually, except for Sally.” Sally had apparently been issued a band of some sort, as she'd already pulled her hair back into a military-style bun.

Mycroft nodded. “Preparations have already been made in that direction, once we've gone through with the briefing.”

Sherlock looked dangerously close to whining. John put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

“It's _hair_ , for God's sake,” he said. “It'll grow back.” He turned to Mycroft. “Now that we know what you're sending us in with, perhaps we could move on to the actual _briefing?_ ”

Mycroft actually smiled, although he looked a bit ill while he did it. He nodded to Anthea.

She did something that John didn't see properly and it changed the screen to a map.

“The group you're pursuing consists of approximately 85 people with varying degrees of parapsychic talent,” she said. “They call themselves the Brethren.”

“Because that's _so_ original,” Sherlock muttered. Anthea continued as if he hadn't interrupted.

“No one is entirely certain who the leader of the Brethren is,” she said. “He or she hasn't made themselves known publicly, although to the best of our knowledge they're actually _at_ the encampment, which is located somewhere south of Jalalabad, in the mountains. It's well-hidden, but we have some _very_ approximate coordinates.” She did something again and the screen changed again. “We believe that the encampment is in a cave system of sorts, and the best way to take this group out is to blow it up once it's found. If you find yourselves unable to do so, once you have exact coordinates, you should be able to call Mister Holmes and order a strike.”

John sat up. “Wait a minute, you want us to kill 85 _civilians_?”

Mycroft looked at John for several moments, and then turned to look at Sherlock for several more moments. Sherlock sighed.

“John,” he said, quietly. “They're civilians, but they're not _innocents_. You _know_ the two aren't the same.”

“How do I know that?” John replied, just as quiet.

Sherlock closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts, before he continued. “Most of these people are murderers, thieves. They've even got a few arms dealers amongst their number. They're _not good people_.”

“It's not a civilian encampment,” Mycroft said. “It's a military encampment, based on our estimates on what sort of equipment has been diverted there. A military encampment staffed with some of the most insane civilians in this hemisphere. There are no helpless women and children here; every one of these people is fully capable of defending themselves. Most of them are fully capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong, which means we have an entire encampment of adults who have chosen 'wrong' as a way of life.”

John exhaled, slowly. “Right. Okay, go on.”

“Now, you'll be flying in to Kabul rather than Kandahar. Avoid road blocks because you won't have official identification. You will have a vehicle but it is to be considered disposable.” Anthea swept her eyes toward John, who nodded understanding of that comment. “Last but not least, you will be very near the border of Pakistan.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “Pakistan.”

“Pakistan,” Mycroft replied, gazing at his brother steadily. “Need I remind you the trouble you caused me _last_ time you ventured into Pakistan, little brother? I don't have nearly as much influence in Pakistan as I do in Afghanistan, so stay _out_ of Pakistan.”

Sherlock smirked. “I could –“

“No.” Mycroft's voice was firm. “Stay _out_ of Pakistan if you wish to stay alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to add: I have already started outlining the next chapter, so hopefully it'll come sooner. Once I have an outline things always come sooner. :)
> 
> I may or may not be planning on working a reference to Mycroft being a fan of Lady Gaga in there, as a nod to another kink meme prompt. XD


	4. SHORT-HAIRED SHERLOCK SAYS YOU SUCK

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm now getting into the military stuff. My internet, however, is shut down; I've hopped on to a neighbor's unsecured wireless to upload this, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull that off again. The pitfalls of being poor, right? If all else fails and I amass too many chapters, I can run over to my parents' house and upload it there. But if you think updates have been sketch now, it might be even worse with no internet.
> 
> Then again, I could be full of shit. I might be able to get the Internet turned back on in two weeks or so. We'll see. Until then, enjoy!
> 
> Edit: We have official permission from our neighbors to use the wifi and I have a search history that is going to require some explaining to do if the Government gets involved. :D Things are going nicely for the next chapter. In the meantime, you can catch me ranting about fandom-related things at ireallyhatecornnuts.tumblr.

John was mostly quiet through the rest of the briefing, and through their time at the range after they'd been issued their weapons and ammunition. Sherlock could tell that he was thinking about  _something_ , but he couldn't figure out  _what_ – John had slammed his psychic shield up almost immediately after Anthea had mentioned Pakistan. Something he was pondering involved the country, but what was anyone's guess.

He was thinking, Sherlock realized, at the back of his mind. Turning an idea over even as he took in the rest of the details of their mission. 

Sherlock was a little bit impressed. It's not that he was incapable, himself, of thinking about multiple things at one time; quite the opposite, in fact. Sherlock often found that he had at least five separate threads of thought running through his mind at any given point in time. What impressed him was that John was managing at least two, potentially _more_ , himself.

He knew that John wasn't an idiot, despite Sherlock himself making that claim (often, sometimes; good job that John wasn't the type to take offense to Sherlockian barbs these days). While there are certainly stupid doctors in the world, John had at the very least got himself through medical school, so he couldn't be an _actual_ idiot. Not to mention the really intriguing research into psionics that he'd done. And of course, the fact that Sherlock was attracted to him. Sherlock did _not_ become attracted to the un-intelligent. He sniffed to himself at that thought. No doubt John, had he been bothering to listen in, would have found that qualifier amusing.

No, what was interesting about this is that it showed a new development in John, similar to his reaching out to protect Greg Lestrade from emotional onslaught several days previous. It showed that John's brain was stretching itself, reaching out toward it's full potential. 

Sherlock found it fascinating. 

John was even silent during their haircuts, not even speaking up to quiet Sherlock's vocal protestations. His hair wound up being not quite as short as John and Lestrade's cuts, but he looked ridiculous nonetheless. Sherlock found himself resisting the urge to _pout_ as they were led away from the room.

They were fed, which was an exercise in tolerance; John said almost nothing during the meal, being accustomed to the fare even after having been invalided for several years at this point. Sally Donovan and Greg Lestrade were a different matter entirely, of course, and complained constantly.

Sherlock could _almost_ see where they were coming from. Military food wasn't exactly easy on one's palate (or stomach). He consumed the bare minimum necessary for function.

After they ate the four of them were escorted to a bloc of rooms; Sherlock and John were given a room together and Sally and Greg got one apiece.

John looked around the double accommodation they'd been given, his eyebrow raised. “It'll do, I suppose,” he said, flashing a humorless smile toward Sherlock. “Especially as we'll only be here one night.”

Sherlock snorted. “Check for bugs,” he said. “I'd be surprised if Mycroft didn't have them planted.”

John rolled his eyes and the two men began to take apart the furnishings in the room. By the time they were finished they'd removed three audio-only bugs and two video ones (one with sound; one without). 

“I halfway believe that he plants the things just because he takes pleasure at you finding them and disposing of them,” John commented as they artfully arranged the electronics in an easily-visible spot in the hallway. 

Sherlock smirked. “That's probably not so far from the truth.”

Once they were back inside, Sherlock turned to his – and here his mind floundered briefly, for Sally wasn't incorrect. He had no idea _what_ to consider John. Boyfriend was a juvenile term that probably applied to their situation, but a large part of him bristled at the idea of using it. Lover implied that their relationship was purely sexual. Partner was trite and _boring,_ and nothing boring could ever properly apply to someone like John.

He shook his head. John, who apparently had been listening _this_ time, smirked. “Glad to hear I'm not _boring_ ,” he said, teasingly. As he said this he picked up one of the two shrink-wrapped packages that had been sitting on the bed and began opening it.

“Ah, our new identities,” John said, displaying the contents. He'd somehow managed to pick up his own; it contained assorted personal items that a person might bring to war with them, including a wallet with a fake military identification card that Sherlock suspected wouldn't hold up to an actual background check. There was also, he noticed, a bank card and some assorted cash – both pounds sterling and Afghanistan currency.

“I hope we don't get stopped,” John said, startled. “This is more afghani than most Afghans make in several years.”

“Hmmmm,” Sherlock said, intrigued, as he picked up his package. It was the same: fake identification, real money, and what Sherlock was beginning to suspect was a real bank card. Sunglasses. Photoshopped pictures of himself and John in fatigues – _very_ well photoshopped, actually. Sherlock made a mental note to find out who was doing Mycroft's image manipulation.

There were also, he realized, items that they'd left in the room before the showers – items that he supposed were allowed. John had a photograph of his parents; Sherlock had his magnifier.

He wondered if that was somehow symbolic. 

There were also some minor incidental things, like notepad and pencil, wristwatches, loose change, and assorted keys on rings that probably didn't open any doors in particular. Things that were designed to make them look like _actual_ people. The little things that spies so often forgot.

“They're really being thorough,” John said, slowly. He turned to Sherlock, considering. “Why's your brother so afraid of Pakistan?”

“They _did_ just perform several nuclear tests,” Sherlock said, frowning. “ _Not_ that that information is available to the general public. I assume that they, like the British government, are in the process of developing parapsychic weaponry. Ostensibly, they're allied with the United States and ourselves.” He shrugged. “I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that the presence of armed troops might escalate things.”

John frowned and flexed his left hand, unconsciously. “Right,” he said, uncertainly. “Well, we'd best get to bed.” He sighed and began pulling the fatigues off. “We've an early flight tomorrow.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

To absolutely _no one's_ surprise, they took off that morning directly from the base, on a private jet that Sherlock couldn't quite pin the ownership of. It was nice and relatively fast: the flight would take a round seven hours rather than the usual eight. There were only a few seats scattered throughout the main body of the plane.

The four of them took seats near each other. Sally sat closest to the front and immediately began to fiddle with the controls in the armrest. It looked to be the chair that whoever controlled the ambient temperature, music and entertainment, and meal times sat in that chair, so Sherlock would be interested to discover what happened should she actually manage to get anything working.

There was a couch. An actual _couch_. Sherlock grinned and immediately reclined on it, ignoring the plane's demands to sit up and put his seat belt on in favor of relaxing in a prone position. Almost out of reflex, his hands came up in front of his mouth and he began thinking.

“I could get used to this,” he murmured. John laughed at him, but he began re-arranging Sherlock until he, too, was sat on the couch, Sherlock's head resting on his lap comfortably.

“That's disgustingly cute,” Sally said, wrinkling her nose as she jabbed at a button on her armrest.

“You have _no_ idea,” Greg said, rolling his eyes. He'd chosen the chair with the most foot room, allowing his legs to splay out as he rested back into the cushioning. His eyelids fluttered closed and he let out a relaxed sigh.

To everyone's surprise a flight attendant came out and took their drink orders. No alcohol, of course; Afghanistan wasn't _strictly_ a dry country anymore, and foreigners were allowed alcohol, but it was best not to tempt fate. Still, they got served some non-alcoholic drinks with relative alacrity and were given a choice of chicken or beef for lunch.

“Hmmmm,” Sally said, smiling to herself. “I could get used to this, too.”

The flight was mostly uneventful, except that about an hour in Sally actually managed to get one of the controls in her chair to work. The latest Lady Gaga single blurted out over the speakers for a solid thirty seconds before she managed to silence it.

“Ah, so it _is_ Mycroft's plane,” Sherlock said, enigmatically, closing his eyes. He then steadfastly shammed sleep until they touched down in Kabul.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

They were met by a large, powerful-looking staff sergeant once they touched down. He didn't introduce himself, although his name badge stated JACKSON in bold, clear Arial letters. John raised an eyebrow and visibly began scanning the area, but he didn't say anything.

The air was hot and dry, hitting Sherlock (very much a creature of London) in the lungs. He felt briefly like he couldn't get enough oxygen. This was why he hated deserts.

“Is breathing still _boring_?” John asked, smirking, from next to him. It took Sherlock several moments to recall the exact conversation John was referencing, and he shot him an exasperated look.

John was still chuckling over that when the staff sergeant led them into a building that was, blessedly, air-conditioned. They were instructed to fill up their canteens and camelbak containers when they reached the break room. At least, it looked like a break room of some sort. There were vending machines and tables and chairs and a sink.

“Your vehicle will have a small allotment of water,” JACKSON said, flipping through some sheets on a clipboard. “Most of your allotment space has been converted with a retrofitted fuel tank.”

“What are you giving us?” John asked.

“Wolf,” JACKSON replied, boredly, looking at John as if it was the obvious answer to the question.

Sherlock blinked. “Wolf?” he asked, turning toward John, who's face had just lit up.

“You'll love this,” John told him, smirking as he capped up his canteen. “The Land Rover, unofficial designation Wolf. Are we getting any armaments?” This last was directed at JACKSON.

“Standard 7.62 millimeter general machine gun has been retrofitted to the main armament position,” JACKSON replied. “I'm afraid the 12.7 was removed to reduce weight.”

John looked happy.

“Are there any additional requests before you leave?” JACKSON asked. 

“I'd like to have a basic toolkit, if it hasn't been packed into the vehicle already,” John replied. “Just the basics: a ratchet, wrench, screwdrivers.” He pondered for several seconds before turning to Greg, Sally, and Sherlock to check and see if they had any ideas.

“Sunscreen,” Greg said, eyeballing Sherlock's pale skin. “Lots of sunscreen.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and requested, for reasons best known to himself, baby wipes. If they were available.

JACKSON flipped through the paperwork and then excused himself to make the requested alterations.

“Right,” John said, putting his camelbak on and holstering his gun. He clipped the full canteen to the outside of his pack and then began digging through it. “From here on out, helmets on at all times.” He pulled his out of his pack and fastened it on under his chin. 

The other three followed his examples, swinging their packs on. Their guns had been shipped with them in cases; they unpacked them reverently, leaving the cases in the break room. Someone would get them, John was sure.

They outfitted themselves with efficiency; John commented that they almost looked like they were _actually_ in the military. By the time JACKSON returned to lead them to their vehicle, they looked wary and prepared. Greg, Sally and Sherlock all had their rifles in hand, loaded and ready to fire. John had his hand resting on his holster with an ease that spoke of frequent use. 

There was no way that anyone watching them as they walked to the motor pool could mistake them as anything other than a squad getting ready to leave for patrol.

“The supply outpost at Jalalabad is expecting you within 24 hours,” JACKSON said, flipping through his clipboard. The tone of his voice strongly reminded everyone there of not-Anthea. “It is highly suggested that you fill up your water containers every time you have an opportunity to do so. If you do not make the rendezvous at Jalalabad a search party will be sent out, discreetly, but the search will only last for an additional 24 hours. If you are not found you will be assumed dead.”

John nodded understanding. “Shouldn't be too hard; it's only a three-hour trip. I assume we will not continue to be assumed dead if we show up after 48 hours are up.”

“Most likely not,” was the reply. 

“Right,” John said. He pointed to Sherlock. “You're driving. I want you to get experience with this style of Land Rover; it's a bit different than what we took to Dartmoor. I'll be in the passenger seat.” He pointed to Greg. “You're behind me.” He looked toward Sally. “Back seat, driver's side. Let's go.”

They loaded their gear in, checked that everything was in working order, vaguely complained about the lack of a roof, and left as quickly as they could.

Sherlock was grinning as they left the airport; it didn't even _begin_ to fade from his face until they'd caught the A1 going east toward Jalalabad. He really, _really_ liked Land Rovers.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

They'd only been going about an hour when they encountered the one thing they'd been warned _not_ to encounter: a road block. They all had identification, but it wasn't real and could easily be exposed as fake if the road block was equipped with any sort of telecommunications. 

They saw it from about a mile away. John had Sherlock stop the car.

“Switch with me,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt. Sherlock looked ready to protest and John gave him a Look that had Sherlock scrambling to unbuckle his restraints.

“If you've a way of controlling him, you really need to share it with me,” Greg said from the back seat.

John grinned. “You really, _really_ don't want to know.” It only took Greg a few seconds to connect those particular dots and his face flushed a brilliant red.

“What?” Sally asked. She was slumped over in her seat, still attempting after several hours to contain her hair properly under her hat. It was not, as of yet, working.

Greg coughed. “John has better methods of persuasion than I do.”

Sherlock snorted. “In this instance, perhaps,” he said, strapping himself in. “You might want to buckle up, Sally. This is probably going to get rough.”

She looked up at him, took in her surroundings, and did as she was told.

John immediately turned toward the north. “According to the GPS we're not too far from Sarawbi,” he said. “We can cut through the mountains and –“

Very suddenly they were being shot at. John made an executive decision.

“Greg” he said, voice tight. “The turret.”

Greg nodded, unbuckling himself and scrambling to the gun that sat in the middle of the load bed. There were no straps to hold him in, so he hooked his left ankle around the base of the turret and swung the gun around to aim behind them.

“Shoot to startle them,” John called back from where he was navigating some rather interesting hazards. “It's probably not even an official road block; didn't look very professional. Probably just some thugs trying to get some bribe money. Let's not kill them right away, just in case.”

“Got it,” Greg said, taking aim and pulling the trigger.

“John,” Sherlock said, urgently. “Can you reach that far back with your mind and find out for sure?”

“I dunno, probably,” John said. “I'm a little _busy_ , though.”

“Try it anyway,” Sally commented, looking over her shoulder. “Greg's shooting isn't scaring them.” She ducked. “And they're still shooting at _us_.”

Sherlock and John ducked as well. Whoever was shooting at them was either attempting to scare them back, or was a lousy shot. It was a good thing, Sherlock thought to himself, that the four of them were all relatively accustomed to being shot at, or he suspected someone would be panicking very badly right about now.

John inhaled and sent his mind backwards, trying to keep a focus on the road in front of him while he did so. It worked surprisingly well; soon he was digging through the memories of three Afghani men.

He took control of their bodies while swinging the Land Rover hard to the right to avoid a small boulder. He was surprised to find that managing three people at once wasn't actually that difficult; he simply forced them to not care about them very much and to go back to their checkpoint to do their job. The shooting stopped and John continued a north-northwest heading, away from them.

After about twenty minutes, John let go of their minds. He brought the car to a stop and let out a huge exhale.

“I've never, _ever_ done anything that crazy before in my life,” he said, shakily. “I just controlled three men for twenty minutes. They're thirty miles away from us right now and I only _just_ let them go.”

“Your range is improving,” Sherlock noted.

Greg sat down in his seat, chest heaving from trying to stay aboard the Land Rover while John drove. “No offense, John, but can you let Sherlock drive for a few minutes? That was probably the most terrifying bit of driving I've ever lived through in my life.” He eyed Sally. “And I've driven with Anderson.”

Sally chuckled darkly. “It must be a family trait; Harry can't drive to save her life, either.”

“ _Excuse_ me,” John said, giving every evidence of actually being offended. “I believe I just _did_ save our lives.”

“That wasn't, strictly speaking, your driving abilities,” Sherlock pointed out – fairly, he thought. “Although I think you did fine.”

The four of them were silent for five seconds before bursting out into giggles.

“Come on, you guys, we can't giggle in a war zone,” John said, which made him and Sherlock laugh even _harder_. After several minutes of hysterical laughter, the four of them calmed down.

“Right, where are we?” John said, once they'd stopped laughing. He glanced down and began swearing.

“What's wrong?” Sally asked, sitting up and peering toward the front of the car. Greg did the same in turn.

“The GPS,” Sherlock answered (John being too busy creating new and innovative curse words). He gestured to where the unit sat. “It's been shot.”


	5. MOTHERFUCKING CAMEL SPIDERS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way, way, WAY too much fun plotting this chapter and the next out. Some information about the gear our group has, a map, and at least one inconsistency are included at the bottom of the chapter. I do just want to say, though, that I love any story where my chapter outline includes the sentence, “MOTHERFUCKING CAMEL SPIDERS.”
> 
> Edit (from my phone, so please excuse any typos): I have officially plotted out the rest of this story. It will be nine chapters long. Now that I know _exactly_ where this is going, things should hopefully move along quite nicely.

Sherlock tried futilely for about twenty solid minutes to resuscitate the broken GPS. Their PDA's hadn't been issued to them yet and were, in fact, sitting at the supply station at Jalalabad, along with a small selection of other items, so John had to make do with an old-fashioned map and compass that Sherlock had been given.

Sherlock himself had no idea how to do _any_ sort of orienteering, which for some reason surprised John. Of course, the fact that he'd have to use star patterns and landmarks and remember where the sun set _may_ have contributed to his ignorance.

“You're a lousy navigator,” John said, rolling his eyes. It was 20:15 and it was June, so the sun had just barely finished setting to the west. He picked out the north star; between that and the sun's position he had a pretty good idea of which direction was true north.

“Right,” he said, setting the map down on the hood of the Land Rover and orienting it properly. They were at the edge of a wash, in a secluded area near the base of a scree. They'd driven through a rough patch of hills (John thanked whatever was holy for four wheel drive) and stopped when John had released the two men's minds. He was still wheeling about that. “Right,” he repeated, smoothing the map down. “From what I can tell we're about twenty minutes south of Dalwazi Kalay.” He peered closer. “Maybe not even that much. Little farming village. Probably full of insurgents.”

“So we want to stay away from there,” Sally said.

“Mostly, yeah,” John replied. He looked around. “We're in a relatively secure location. I don't think anyone from the town would have seen us drive up. We can kip here for the night and suss out our transportation issues tomorrow morning. I don't think we should drive around looking for the road until I know for sure where we are. Don't wanna run out of fuel before we get to Jalalabad.”

Sherlock was already unpacking the car. Damn him.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

John scowled. He was strongly reminded of why he hated one-man tents; they were claustrophobic even for one man, let alone _two_. He and Sherlock were going to have to sleep apart tonight, and it made him cross.

He sighed then, standing, and dusted his hands off. Not much for it.

They ate dinner, busting into the rations; John hoped they'd be able to replenish them at Jalalabad. He was honestly surprised to find that the Army had somehow managed to improve the quality of food, although it still all tasted heavy laden with preservatives.

“This is _disgusting_ ,” Sally said, wrinkling her nose as she prodded her chicken tikka masala inside it's foil package.

“You shouldn't have heated it up,” John said. “The chicken _always_ tastes better cold.”

Sherlock smirked as he shoveled food into his mouth. None of them would be surprised to discover that he wasn't even tasting it.

“Okay,” John said, leaning back against his tent as he finished up his meal. “Normally I would assign a watch, but I can't sense any human beings around for at least ten miles. Sally, any precogs?”

Sally concentrated and then shook her head. “No, I _think_ we're good. That's as certain as I can be.”

John accepted that for what it was and switched his gaze toward Lestrade. “Greg, do you feel anyone?”

Greg frowned and reached out; John was surprised that he could feel it, as if the other man's psyche was somehow bumping into his. Sherlock raised his eyebrow at John but didn't say anything.

“No, just a few stray cats and lizards,” Greg said. “I _think_ they're lizards. They're cold.”

“Okay. We're not going to stand a watch tonight,” John said.

“I'm not tired,” Sherlock offered. John rolled his eyes.

“If you feel like sitting here by yourself watching us, you're welcome to it, but I'm bloody exhausted. Let's get some rest and aim to wake up around 05:30.” He sighed. “Try to get at least _some_ sleep, alright Sherlock? If you absolutely cannot _stand_ the idea of us not having a guard, wake me up to get a few hours.” Sherlock nodded acceptance of that condition.

They cleaned up their mess, packing their leftover gear and garbage into the Land Rover. John popped the hood of the SUV and physically removed the battery cables, disconnecting them from the electrical system and tucking them into his tent.

“Why are you doing _that?_ ” Sally said, frowning. “It's more work in the morning.”

“Yeah,” John agreed. “But if someone sneaks up on us in the middle of the night, I don't want them taking the car. This'll keep them from hotwiring it.”

Sherlock looked impressed.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

_**BAM! BAM!**_

John shot upright, getting a faceful of tent in the process as he struggled to get out of the contraption. Echoes of gunfire vibrated through his eardrums and set his teeth on edge. 

“Bloody _hell!_ ” Greg's voice said, off to his right. Sally made an alarmed sound from her tent.

Sherlock, however, was _laughing_.

“What's going on?” John snapped, as he pried himself out of his tent. Greg was standing there and he looked _embarrassed_.

“Got up to take a leak,” Greg said, shifting from foot to foot. He was only wearing helmet, boxers and his boots. Sherlock was standing near him, fully decked out in his uniform and looking _very_ amused.

“Right,” John said, his pulse calming down. “And that led to gunfire... _how?_ ”

Greg coughed; even in the dark, John could tell he was blushing. He heard Sally walk up behind him; a glance to his left showed that she was wearing her undershirt and trousers, but no helmet. He made a mental note to chastise her for it later.

“Yeah, well, I took my gun with me because I didn't wanna get caught with my pants down metaphorically as well as physically,” Greg said. “When I came back I saw _that._ ”

He pointed. John looked at what he was pointing at and began to laugh. Greg's tent was _ruined_. Although John was fairly certain that the sleeping bag was alright. He began to inspect it, still laughing. “Not that I _blame_ you, mind,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes as he turned back around to look at Greg. “But you _seriously_ shot at a camel spider?”

“It _attacked_ me!” Greg said, defensively. Sherlock was outright grinning now, and his laughter threatened to resume.

“They do that,” John replied. He was grinning too. “Look, your tent's a mess now. Sherlock, were you going to sleep?”

“I was considering it,” Sherlock replied. “It's about 4:30. I figured an hour's nap would get me through tomorrow.”

“Right,” John said. “I'm never going to get back to sleep, after that. Sherlock, kip in my tent. Greg, take Sherlock's tent from now on. Yours is garbage. We'll get a new tent in Jalalabad.” He laughed again. “Keep in mind from now on that when you exit your tent you should always close the mosquito netting.”

“Right,” Greg said, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. He pulled his sleeping bag and clothes out of the ruined tent and shoved them into Sherlock's. A second later he tossed Sherlock's sleeping bag – still rolled up and unused – toward the other man.

Sherlock caught it easily and loaded it into the Land Rover. “I'll just use yours,” he murmured, still grinning as he leaned over to give John a kiss.

John kissed him back and returned to re-dressing in his fatigues and pulling his things out of his tent. “That's fine,” he said.

The desert was creepy at night. Once everyone else had gone back to sleep, John pulled Sherlock's assault rifle to him and walked, quietly, around the camp. He _almost_ stepped on another camel spider at one point, but managed to restrain himself from shooting it. He wound up crushing it with a largeish rock after it chased him across the camp, and John was very _very_ glad that no one was awake to witness it.

After his life-or-death tussel with the spider, he settled into the drivers' seat of the Land Rover and sent his mind out with a purpose. He discovered ten other camel spiders and a plethora of assorted creepy crawlies near their camp. Their minds were very simple, totally incapable of abstract thinking, so John simply made them all afraid of the direction the camp lay in. Soon the entire area was arachnid-free, just as John preferred it. He made a mental note to do this every night before they went to bed.

He woke everyone up just after 06:00, figuring that he'd wait until the sun had _actually_ begun to rise before forcing everyone to greet the day. Powdered coffee in cold water had to do for caffeine, something that _no one_ was happy about, but once they'd packed up camp, John promised that they'd try for a camp stove and kettle in Jalalabad.

“We'll stop in Sarawbi,” John said, as he turned the key in the ignition. “It's fairly close and I know there's at least one petrol station there. We can top off the tanks, get some more water. And there's a place we can get a proper cuppa, if we're lucky and it's still standing.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

John's estimates of where they were wasn't so far off, and forty minutes after they'd left camp they rolled into Sarawbi. It was actually a bit out of their way, which Sherlock pointed out about halfway there, once they'd found a road that led them pointedly _away_ from the A1.

“Yeah, if we wanted to be efficient we'd head south,” John said. “But I _know_ Sarawbi. It's relatively harmless, I have at least one friend there, and if someone's watching us they'll have a harder time determining what we're doing.”

Sherlock was quiet for several seconds before nodding. “Sarawbi it is.”

They had to drive across a rather unstable bridge that crossed the Kabul river. John was glad the bridge was still there; the other alternative involved going to the north and attempting to gain passage across the Naghlu Dam. Which could present a myriad of issues that John didn't particularly want to deal with.

“Whew,” Sally said, shaking her head. “Smells.”

“Yeah, it does that sometimes,” John said, smiling. Where there was arable land, you could usually find farms, and where you find farms, you find manure.

Sally wrinkled her nose. “I'll stick with the city, thanks.”

Greg laughed, but then again, he was a country boy at heart. John could sense their differing childhoods in his mind without even trying; they were his friends, their minds were open to him.

Sherlock looked at John again, _damn him,_ and raised his eyebrow. _Is this going to be a normal thing?_ he asked. _I'm not sure what the protocol between psychic friends is but I'm pretty sure it doesn't extend to inadvertent mind-reading._

_Shut up,_ John said, downshifting the Land Rover as they turned on to the main stretch of road in Sarawbi. 

_You're getting stronger, John. We should work with everyone on their shields when we get home or it might present a problem._

_You're probably right,_ he admitted. He let a frustrated sigh escape from his lips, which Sally and Greg pointedly ignored. They were used to nonsensical sighs coming from John; it seemed to be a work-related hazard associated with being psychically bonded to Sherlock Holmes.

The petrol station wasn't so much a station as it was a man who had a pump and tank, probably for running farm equipment or some other nefarious purpose. Before John could settle to the business of negotiating a price, Sherlock began speaking in fluent Pashto. Surprisingly, John could understand _exactly_ what he was saying: a shock because he'd only had a few phrases when he last left Afghanistan, and had no reason to have kept up the few he did have.

_“What rate do you charge?”_ Sherlock was saying.

_“350 afghanis per litre,”_ the man replied, crossing his arms. John could hear him clearly: He didn't trust them because their guns were all pointed at him.

“Come _on_ , guys, put your guns down,” John said, crossly, to the other three. “We're not here to start _another_ fucking war.”

_“That seems rather steep,”_ Sherlock continued. _“In Kabul it was a mere 200 afghanis.”_

_“This is_ _ **not**_ _Kabul,”_ the man replied.

“Sherlock,” John snapped. He turned to the man. _“350 afghanis is fine. Do you want to pump for us or would you rather we do it?”_

_“I will take care of it. Pay up front,”_ the man said, moving to his tank.

John pulled his wallet out and turned away from the man, shielding how much currency he had. He counted out a respectable amount, which would more than cover their top-off and this man's silence, which he then handed over.

While he filled the tank, John turned to Sherlock and crossed his arms. “Right. Have you _always_ been able to speak Pashto?”

Sherlock looked surprised. “Was _that_ what I was speaking? Good lord, I thought it was Dari. When did I learn _Pashto?_ ” He steepled his fingers in front of him and began to think. John verbally dragged him back to the conversation.

“I'd like to know when _I_ learned Pashto,” John said. “Seeing as I could never quite get the hang of it when I lived here for _two bloody years_.”

Sherlock looked flummoxed. “I thought I must have got it from _you_.”

John's mind jumped several steps ahead from where they were and a grin broke out on his face. “Sherlock, you're a _talker_.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and let out a very annoyed, put-upon sigh. “Yes, you're always saying.” He flapped a hand in John's general direction, dismissing him.

“No, no, Sherlock, I mean a _talker_. It's a type of psychic ability, a sort of cross between telepathy and empathy.” John looked exceedingly pleased. “It's pretty rare, as far as I can tell. I've met hundreds of psychics and you're only the fifth one I know.”

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked at John. “What in God's name are you on about?”

“Talkers tap into the language portion of the brain. They sort of... _assimilate_ it into their own language center,” Greg interjected. He looked apologetic. “Sorry. But my grandda was a talker. You're right, it _is_ pretty rare.”

John laughed. “But this is _fantastic_ ,” he said. “With Sherlock around, we'll never have to worry about language barriers. And because we're bonded, _I_ can do it too.”

Sherlock looked annoyed. “So you're saying I can speak any language. I've _always_ been gifted with languages, John.”

“No, Sherlock,” John said, shaking his head. “You can speak the language of any person you meet. There's a slight difference.”

Sherlock began speaking equally-fluent French. _“There are no French people in sight, and yet I can still speak French. There is a hole in your argument, John.”_

_“And I just understood every word you just said,”_ John replied in perfect French, grinning. He switched back to English. “I've never taken a French class in my _life_.”

Sherlock looked stymied. 

“Talkers usually have near-eidetic memories,” Greg said, picking up the gist of their argument. “If you don't already _have_ an eidetic memory, you do have your mind palace, which probably works the same. I doubt you'd forget a language just because you learned it unconsciously, Sherlock.”

Sally laughed. “Sherlock Holmes, forget something rather than delete it? Never in a million years.”

The man with the petrol finished filling up their fuel tank and closed the lid with a snapping noise. John thanked him in Pashto, grinning as he did so, as they all piled back into the SUV.

Sherlock still looked disgruntled.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

There was a major accident on the A1 involving a Afghani military convoy and a herd of cattle that delayed them a solid nine hours. Sherlock had applied sunscreen to his pale skin eight times and complained about the heat – Sally joining him in this endeavor – for about two total hours. By the end of the trip, both John and Greg were visibly restraining themselves from strangling the two born-and-bred city dwellers. None of them had their PDA's or any sort of communication device yet, nor even a ruddy _book_ , so they were heartily bored as well. Sally had taken to doodling pictures along the edges of the map, little chibi-esque pictures of the four of them.

Right before the mess was cleared from the roadway and they got on their way, she passed John a picture she'd drawn. He chuckled at it; it was a chibified version of himself, in his military uniform, chasing after a chibified version of Sherlock, in his regular coat and scarf. Sherlock was clutching a tub of sunscreen and what looked to be a personal fan of some sort.

Greg found it _hilarious_. Sherlock did not.

“Sunstroke is no laughing matter,” he huffed as John pulled them up to the base.

As they came to a stop they noted a platoon that looked the be preparing to leave. They were a half-hour past seven, which would make them officially late for arrival. “Must be our search and rescue team,” Greg commented as they clambered out of the Land Rover. 

He was right. The platoon was dismissed once John reported in to the captain in charge of the outpost. He debriefed right then and there, and the four of them were assigned a rather cramped quarters together.

“At least you can't bitch about sexism,” Greg said, cutting Sally off when she looked to complain about bunking with four men. She rolled her eyes.

“I was going to suggest giving Sherlock and John their _own_ space, if possible,” Sally replied. John blushed.

“Not necessary, but thanks,” he said. Sherlock looked completely unfazed by her comment and the fact that the entirety of the depot leadership now knew that he and John were sleeping together.

“Is there anything else you need now that you're _finally_ here?” Captain Greene said, tactfully drawing attention away from the current topic of conversation. He looked disgruntled and not a bit unhappy to have been dumped with the responsibility of an unofficial special operation.

“We had an unfortunate incident involving a camel spider,” John said, managing to keep his face straight. “And an assault rifle.” He glanced at Sherlock. “If I could get a two-man tent to replace it, that would be lovely. And possibly a camp stove and kettle. Actually, I think I have a smallish list,” and he began searching through his pockets.

Sherlock shoved the list into his face. “I pickpocketed you. I was bored,” he said.

“And creatively added to it, I see,” John commented, as he peered at the ragged piece of paper. “Right. Two-man tent. Camp stove. Kettle. A new GPS – Sherlock, I think they figured that. And yes, our PDA's as well. Jesus, Sherlock, not everyone is a _complete_ moron.”

“I prepared for every eventuality,” Sherlock replied, lazily taking in his surroundings and pointedly not looking at John.

“More paper and pencils would be good. If you have it,” John said, looking up at the Captain Greene, who nodded. “And if you can spare some supplies to replace the ones we used up because of that road block, that would be advantageous.”

“We can do all of that,” Greene said, sounding almost relieved. “Your care package got in yesterday, still sealed up in my office.”

“We can come get it and the rest of the supplies tomorrow morning before we leave,” John offered. “Get out of your hair for the rest of the night.”

Greene smiled. “The mess tent just finished serving supper, but they've orders to feed you lot.”

“Thanks,” John said. The two shook hands, captain-to-captain.

“That was relatively painless,” Sally muttered. “Sorry about that, John.”

“It's alright,” John negated with a wave of his hand. “I'm sure Sherlock and I can take care of anyone who wants to be a homophobic git.” He sighed. “Besides, it's nothing to be ashamed of.”

Greg snorted. “Come on, Greene's as gay as they come. You didn't have anything to fear from him.”

Sherlock froze and turned toward Greg. “How could _you_ tell?”

Greg stopped in his place as well and regarded the younger man. “It's the _desert_. I know hygiene in general is pretty important, but he was _immaculate_. His eyebrows were _tweezed_ , for God's sake. Not to mention he checked you out the moment you walked in the door.”

Sherlock flushed slightly.

“Oh my God, you've been living with them for _too long_ ,” Sally said, pushing Greg forward.

“There ya go,” John said, grinning. “Your first-ever deduction. How does it feel?”

Greg sighed. Sherlock looked pleased; almost proud.

“Good lord, it's like we're the world's most fucked-up family,” Sally muttered. “God save me from you people.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

They all showered and got themselves into clean fatigues first thing. Sally didn't even bat an eye at sharing a shower room with three other men. The stalls were fairly short, but as she pointed out, John and Greg were both too nice to look and while Sherlock might, it wasn't for nefarious purposes because he was gay. And so very _Sherlock_. Even if he _weren't_ gay, he'd probably just be checking to see if she had any cancerous spots he could examine.

“ _Please_ ,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes as he _flounced_ into his shower stall. “As if I have any need to examine cancer spots. I've done that study already.” As he began to wash, he unpacked his hygiene kit, just as everyone else did. But unlike everyone else, he made an annoyed, slightly embarrassed noise about halfway through the process.

“Sherlock?” John inquired. Sherlock, his face flushing slightly, held up what he'd just found in his hygiene kit: a decent-sized tube of lubricant. 

“I'm going to _kill_ Mycroft,” Sherlock replied succinctly, as Sally and Greg outright laughed at him from their shower stalls.

“Ah, come on, mate,” Greg said, absolutely no embarrassment in his face as he began to lather himself up. “That's a good wingman for you.”

John laughed. Sherlock did _not_. The rest of the shower, however, continued without mishap.

Greg volunteered to take their dirty fatigues to the wash. John nodded assent of that as he, Sally and Sherlock turned back toward their accommodations.

“You sure you don't need some alone time?” Sally asked, keeping her eyes straight ahead of her as they walked in.

“I'm sure,” John said, firmly. “It's getting late. Once Greg gets back with the wash we should get to bed.”

“Whatever,” Sally said, rolling her eyes. She shrugged off her overshirt: it was overwhelmingly hot, even indoors. 

“We ought to remove our name badges,” Sherlock said, suddenly. “Even if it's just in Britain, we're both fairly well-known, John. On it's own, a Holmes or a Watson wouldn't raise too many questions, but _together_...”

“Hmmm,” John said, frowning down at the fabric patch on his chest. WATSON. He liked it, although he'd never admit as such. “Might be a good idea, at that.” He frowned. “After we leave base tomorrow. It'll raise interesting, and unneeded, questions if we try to leave base without them.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

The next morning John procured a cheap seam ripper from the quartermaster before they left the base. They were completely restocked, and they had all of the things that John had requested, which was nice. A two-man tent to share with Sherlock would certainly make him sleep easier. 

That afternoon, when they stopped for lunch, John retrieved the seam ripper and they took the time to remove the name patches from all of their gear, tucking them into the Land Rover's map compartment. 

That was the first relaxing moment they had in nearly a week. After six days without a shower, Sally began haranguing the three men until they found a small town where they could all wash. They'd been to the approximate GPS coordinates that Anthea had provided them and found absolutely nothing, but while they were in town John made a few inquiries and discovered that there was a whispered-about base full of white men about fifty miles south of their current location.

John frowned at the map as he told everyone about this that night at dinner. “That's really, _really_ close to the Pakistan border,” he said.

“Pakistan is nothing,” Sherlock said, waving his hand. “Mycroft may be paranoid about it but I have connections in Karachi.”

“Karachi is nowhere near where we're going to be if we wind up crossing the border,” John pointed out. “Your friends won't be able to help us this close to the Afghani border, Sherlock.”

“You don't have any buddies left up here?” Greg asked.

John looked pensive. “Maybe,” he said, quietly. “There's an American unit. My unit was stranded with them for a few months while we sorted out a paperwork snarl.” He was quiet for several minutes while he thought it out. “Last time I talked to Steve he was doing scoutwork at Bokar. I can't rely on it, but it's probably more likely than any help from Karachi.”

He thought about it through dinner and then nodded. “Right. If we run into trouble in Pakistan, we'll head for Bokar and see if I know anyone around there.”

Sally regarded him with her eyebrow raised; John was blocking everything from everyone at a psychic level, but Sally had _intuition_ , damn her.

“Any precogs?” he asked, politely.

She grinned. “Nothing set in stone. Not yet, anyway.”

As they prepared for camp that night, she sauntered over to him, speaking quietly. “I hope it _doesn't_ happen, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing your ex-boyfriend soon.”

John stopped in his tracks.

“Just a feeling I have,” Sally cautioned. “Nothing definite.”

John finished setting up the two-man tent before turning back to her. “It was just a fling,” he said. “Nothing serious.”

“I figured as much,” Sally said, grinning. She winked. “ _I_ won't tell Sherlock, but if we run into him you might consider it.”

John sighed.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

“Right, this is definitely the place,” John murmured.

It _had_ to be. People were swarming all over this cave system. People decidedly _not_ of Afghani heritage, people who really had _no_ place at the edge of Afghanistan. And more importantly, he could tell that _all_ of them were psychic.

Thank God for telepath-proof helmets.

They'd left the Land Rover back about two miles away, crammed with the majority of their gear. It was a decision that made John uneasy, but he wanted an escape route if they were going into enemy territory. They each had their water supplies and two days worth of food, not to mention as much ammunition as they could cram on their bodies. If they had to hack it in the middle of the desert tonight, they'd survive.

“There's a blind side,” Sherlock pointed out. Greg nodded sage agreement behind him. “To the north. No guards, but it looks like there's an entrance to the cave system.”

“Could be a blind cave,” John suggested.

“Possible,” Sherlock agreed. “Except that I've seen two units go through it already.”

“If they know about it and it's not being guarded, I'm wary,” John said, a frown coming over his head.

“We could set a decoy,” Sally suggested, pulling out a block of C4 from a thigh pocket. “Just a small one, mind, but a little explosion away from the entrance.”

“That's an idea,” Greg said, tugging on his lip. “Will it affect our ability to blow the place up?”

Sally shook her head. “I didn't even bring all of the C4 with me that they gave me, and I've still got more than enough. We'll be fine.” She looked at her supplies and then toward John. “If I set this up and get it ready to go, can you put it where it needs to be?”

“Kinetically, you mean?” John asked. At Sally's nod, he continued. “Probably. Depends on where you want it to go.”

The four of them surveyed the area.

“There,” Sherlock said, pointing. “About a half a mile away from the main entrance, near the secondary entrance. You'll probably kill some people, but not a lot. Enough to distract the population and let us in.”

Sally set it up quickly; C4 was relatively harmless in it's traveling state, a clay-like substance that could be formed into numerous shapes. When the electronic detonator was inserted and deployed, it exploded with such a force that it actually created two separate percussive events: the primary explosion, and a secondary _implosion_. The implosion could be equally destructive, seeing as it was formed due to how fast air was forced away from the initial explosion.

“Do you think you can detonate these from that far away?” Sally asked.

“I have _no_ idea,” John said. “I certainly hope so.”

“Me too,” Sally said. She finished assembling her kit and held it up gingerly. “Be easy with it,” she cautioned.

John grabbed it telekinetically, letting it hover in front of them for a brief few moments, before it shot up and over the encampment. It was tiny, really, something no one would ever think to look for. 

It landed just right, setting off a fabulous (if smallish) explosion. This had the immediate effect of drawing attention away from the entrance they wanted to use.

The four of them quickly ran toward the back entrance they'd spotted, and slipped in. There was an actual garage-style door, which wasn't exactly a challenge, although it _was_ unexpected. To John's surprise, the cave had been retrofitted with wall panels, making it into a warehouse-like, climate-controlled inner building. There were crates everywhere and honest-to-God electrical lights that were running.

“Hell of a setup they've got here,” Greg commented.

“I don't like the looks of this,” Sally said, frowning. She strode over toward one crate and pointed to the biohazard symbol stamped onto it's side. They had almost no warning when Sally suddenly lurched over, sick to her stomach. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, we're in _trouble_ –“

They heard the sound of multiple guns being cocked.

“You've got to be _kidding_ me,” Greg said. They turned and found themselves surrounded by men and women with an astonishing variety of guns.

_You were right,_ Sherlock said.

_Pardon?_ John replied. Really, this wasn't the time for Sherlock to be distracting him.

_Please, God, let me live,_ Sherlock said. _It really_ _ **is**_ _the last thing you think before you're about to die._

_I know this isn't the time to say, 'I told you so,'_ John began. He was interrupted by the angry retort of nearly every single one of the guns pointed at them.

Everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those interested, here's a link to where the group makes camp that first night: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kabul&hl=en&ll=34.581055,69.655745&spn=0.010847,0.024376&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.581364,99.84375&t=h&hnear=Kabul,+Afghanistan&z=16
> 
> God, what did we do before Google Maps?
> 
> The rations issued are, naturally, British military rations, which come in 24-hour packs. When I first stated that they had two weeks worth of food, I was going on the assumption that British field rations were packaged similarly to American Meals, Ready to Eat. I was wrong. British rations are apparently packaged in boxes for 24 hours, where MRE's are packaged in disposable plastic, waterproof (and very squishable) kits and are roughly 12-15 hours worth of rations. *handwave* Somehow, they have two weeks apiece of boxes of rations. I don't know how they managed it; perhaps they have big Army duffels instead of ALICE-style packs.
> 
> British-style ration packs: http://www.cadetsuk.com/contents/en-us/d276_british_army_ration_packs.html
> 
> American-style ration packs: http://neverhunger.org/images/MRE_contents_full.jpg
> 
> I also fucked up, apparently, on what kind of explosives Sally would be given. Since they've been given American guns I'm gonna say they're getting American explosives, namely C4 (which is mostly harmless while traveling). The British military gets PE4 or Semtex, but I dig C4, because I know the most about it (one of my ex-boyfriends in high school had a dad who was on the bomb squad, and my husband is ex-EOD. Fun times).
> 
> Additionally, I'm not sure what kind of one-man tent the British army would issue, but in my mind, these are the type our guys (and gal) were given by Mycroft: http://www.military-sleeping-bags.com/image/micro-tent-plus-product.gif Something similar can be considered relatively standard special operations issue, IIRC, but I could be wrong. Either way, too small to really do anything other than sleep in. They also have mosquito nets, so a tan version would probably be perfect for the desert and it's myriad creepy-crawlies. I live in a desert. In fact, northern Nevada (where I'm from) is often compared to Afghanistan in climate, and we have a lot of similar bugs (no camel spiders, though. Thank God).
> 
> So basically, if John ever came on vacation to the Reno/Tahoe area, he might have flashbacks. But he'd be well used to the heat. Sherlock, naturally, would be miserable.


	6. THE TEXAS TWELVE-STEP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note about the chapter name: The Texas Twelve-Step is what those in recovery call twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. You'll get the reference in a few minutes. :)
> 
> You'll note that there's now a set amount of chapters for this story. While at my parents' house tonight I outlined the last four chapters, of which this is included. I then busted this puppy out in about two hours, which I'm very happy about.
> 
> It seems to me like this story has mostly become about John, and not the group. And to be honest, that's true. I love John, he's my favorite character, and I feel most comfortable in his voice despite the comparisons that have been made between Sherlock and I, personality-wise. But I have plans for the others, which I am going to explore in other stories, so keep your eyes out on this universe. :)
> 
> So, in conclusion: the story is thoroughly outlined, I know where it's going, there will be lots of John and then more stories with the others, and I will hopefully have finished it in the next week or two. Enjoy!
> 
> As always, you can catch me on ireallyhatecornnuts.tumblr

Somehow, John knew he wasn't dead.

When he had been going through basic training, they'd given him and his classmates a course in urban warfare. It included the use of tasers. Each recruit had been forced to be tased, at least once, so they'd know what it felt like. So they wouldn't use the weapons for no reason just because it wasn't fatal.

That was what John felt right now. He felt like he was being tased, only it didn't _hurt_. Electricity was flowing through every inch of his body; if he touched someone he'd be willing to bet that their hair would stand on end.

Very suddenly the room lit up again with a ghastly red glow. Behind him, John could hear what he assumed were backup generators kicking on. None of that mattered, however, because they were surrounded by a veritable _hailstorm_ of bullets.

All types – he could see handgun bullets, rifle bullets, even buckshot. All about three feet away from them – Sherlock, Sally, and Greg all seemed alive and well, within this little bubble – and rotating slowly mid-air.

He could _feel_ Sherlock's shock in his mind, his wonder at exactly how strong John actually was. _This_ was what gestalt was for him, John realized; it wasn't just a power boost, it was _supercharging_ all of his batteries. He'd just plowed through a relatively strong mental shield like it was made of water; he'd just stopped at least a hundred separate bullets from killing them all dead on _instinct_.

_Jesus fucking_ _ **Christ**_ , he thought, wide-eyed. Willing it within himself, he allowed the bullets to drop in front of him and then dropped the shield. When he finished accessing the building's generators, the regular lights came back on.

The soldiers in front of him were staring in shock.

Everyone was dead silent for a solid thirty seconds before someone strode into the room. And with that, John began paying attention.

He had close-cropped hair, bleached blond by the sun. _Everything_ about him screamed military: from his six-foot tall bearing and the way he held his shoulders right down to the way he walked and his clothing. Ex-military, if he didn't miss his mark.

This, he thought, may very well be the Brethren's enigmatic leader.

“One of you is a kinetic,” the man said. John could feel his psyche bumping against John's own; instinctively, he shielded himself and Sherlock from it. “I aim to find out _who_.”

With that, he gestured and snapped his fingers; four soldiers detached from the main group and began to escort the four of them out of a door.

_What's going on, you think?_ John asked Sherlock.

Sherlock was inscrutable. _I have no idea, John._

_Whoever said that no news was good news was a gigantic fucking liar,_ John replied, giddy at still being alive. He glanced over toward Greg, who had a glazed look on his face; Sally's face matched. 

Before he could come to any conclusions about that, John was shoved into what appeared to be a tiny holding cell. It was _really_ tiny, no toilet or chair despite being about the size of a toilet stall. He was obviously supposed to be uncomfortable.

Not a chance in _hell_. John had spent a ridiculous amount of time with Sherlock Holmes, which routinely required that he spend time in small spaces. Any lingering claustrophobia John had after he was discharged had been swiftly dealt with by necessary exposure. John sat down, cross-legged, and he waited.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

He was still waiting an hour later when Sherlock finally contacted him.

_I was_ _ **hoping**_ _we'd still be able to talk,_ Sherlock said. _Sorry it took so long. I was trying to reach Sally and Lestrade, but these rooms are shielded._

_Are they?_ John frowned and tried to reach any of the minds outside. No such luck; Sherlock was entirely right. Hmm, so they are. Bugger.

_I think..._ And Sherlock was quiet for several moments while he gathered himself. _I think you could temporarily include them in the bond-link, John. You've done it before, accidentally._ He must have felt John's disbelief, because he continued. _For example: you shielded Lestrade from your sister and Sally at the flat before we left, and when you drew us all into my mind palace._

John frowned. _But these quarters are_ _ **shielded**_ _, Sherlock._

_I'm aware of that, John, but you know them._ _ **Very**_ _well: other than myself, they're your two closest friends. That's a link, and between that and my finding abilities, I think you could potentially contact them._

_Right_ , John said, frowning. He sat up from where he'd been leaning against the wall. _I'll try it. Give me a few minutes._

He exhaled and forced himself to relax. Slowly, he let his mind begin to expand outward from himself. There was a very uncomfortable moment when he bumped against the shielding, but then he reached out, tweaking the link between himself and Sherlock.

To his surprise, he didn't need to rely on Sherlock's talents, which was just as good because he wasn't sure they'd work. However, halfway in between them wasn't shielded at _all_ , and slowly he let his mind stop clinging to the link and to range outward.

Sherlock kept him tethered to the link, which was good because John was fairly certain that he wasn't even remotely connected to his body anymore. This fact, however, let him find the thin tendrils of Greg and Sally's minds and yank on them, through the doors they were locked behind. Once he had them gathered to himself, almost protectively, he began to draw back toward the link. Back to Sherlock.

After several minutes of working it out, he opened his eyes. _Sally, Greg,_ he welcomed them. 

_What did you_ _ **do**_ _?_ Sally whispered, amazed.

_He used our link to facilitate telepathy, which then allowed him to draw the two of you into the link,_ Sherlock explained. John wasn't entirely sure that was a perfect explanation, but it'd do for now.

_Bloody smart of you,_ Greg commented. _Although I dunno how useful it'll be._

 _Communication is_ _ **always**_ _important when you're behind enemy lines,_ John snapped. Then he sighed and stretched his shoulders out. 

They were quiet for several more minutes, reveling in the contact with each other. None would admit it aloud (psychically or otherwise) but they were comforted by knowing their friends were alive and well. Finally, John spoke up.

_So, what do we know?_ he said. _May as well have a meeting. Psychics Anonymous. Hi, I'm John, and I'm a bloody idiot who agrees to take jobs from Mycroft bloody Holmes._ _ **Fuck**_ _._

There was some tittering from the others.

_I suppose I ought to mention that this guy we're dealing with is a broadcasting empath,_ Greg said. _He didn't get to you two, cuz you were shielding, but he got Sally and I for a few seconds. Bloody_ _ **terrifying**_ _._

 _It was rather scary,_ Sally admitted. _Very suddenly I wanted nothing more than to tell him everything. I was able to resist; I don't think he's very strong._

 _No, not that strong, but strong enough to do damage to people who don't know what they're dealing with,_ Greg said, slowly. _Someone like that could do a whole hell of a lot of damage._

They were all silent for a while, pondering the damage that Mycroft Holmes could wreck and clearly didn't choose to.

_My God,_ John breathed. _I never thought I'd say this, Sherlock, but I am going to kiss your brother thank-you when I see him next._

_You most certainly are_ _ **not**_ _,_ Sherlock replied, crossly. John got the mental impression that he was frowning deeply – and hiding something. John prodded but Sherlock was resisting and it felt... _wrong_ to try to pry it out of him.

_**Anyway,**_ Sally said, dragging them back to the subject at hand. _I'd really like to get out of here alive if possible. John, do you think you can shield Greg and I as well?_

_I don't see why not,_ John said, reasonably. _As long as we maintain this link. It's probably going to take a bit of effort on your part, at least until I grab hold of him._

 _Grab hold of him?_ Greg asked.

_Oh, yes,_ John said, grinning maliciously to himself from within his cell. _Remember what I did in the bar, Greg?_ He selected a bit of memory and showed the entire group how he'd once briefly taken control of Greg Lestrade's body for long enough to make him take a sip of beer. _I'm going to overpower him and take his body over and get us out the_ _ **hell**_ _of here._

Sally went quiet. _You're very lucky that I love and trust you, John Watson,_ she said, respect and awe tinging her mental voice. _Or I would be very,_ _ **very**_ _afraid of you._

John's grin became more ruthless. _I'm sure you'd have good reason to,_ he said. He heard some noises from outside of the cell door. _I think we're up. Come on, then, Lords and Lady. Time to play._

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

A woman in fatigues that were clearly salvaged from the Israeli military escorted him back toward the room they'd been discovered in. The four of them were stripped of the majority of their belongings: the assault rifles had been taken from them from the start, but they were now stripped of their helmets, ammunition, explosives, and food. John managed to save his gun by the simple expedient of having shoved it into his waistband rather than his holster, and he blessed himself for it even if he only had the fifteen rounds his gun currently held. They were then brought forward.

Their captor was standing there; he'd shucked his outer shirt and was standing in camouflage fatigue pants and a black T-shirt, arms crossed, in the very center of the room.

_**Someone's**_ _been watching too many bad action movies,_ Sally said, primly. The four of them giggled across the psychic link.

John felt him trying to exert psychic control of their emotions over them and shielded all of them. _He's trying to get at us,_ John cautioned them. _Best to act impassive._

They all allowed their faces to become lax.

“Which one of you is the kinetic?” the man demanded, beginning to pace as they were lined up in front of him. “I need a kinetic on my team, one strong enough to stop a hundred bullets at once. And what was that you did with the electricity? We could use that ability too. Removing electrical power from our enemies could be a boon.”

_Oh God,_ Greg whispered. _He doesn't know about the gestalt._

_No one even_ _ **think**_ _about it,_ Sherlock said, fiercely. _He can't be allowed to know it exists._

 _Sherlock, I'm the strongest psychic in this room,_ John said. _And_ _ **I'm**_ _shielding all of us, and I'm using gestalt to do it. There's not a person on this_ _ **base**_ _who could break this shield._

No one attempted to gainsay his abilities. Now that they were connected to him, and they could feel how he was using the gestalt, and they could sense his strength...And _God_ , he was strong. John, in tapping the gestalt, had unlocked his full psychic potential. It was...intense.

_John,_ Greg said, a bit reverently. _I'm not entirely certain there's a person on the_ _ **planet**_ _who could break through this shield, but let's not tempt fate, yeah?_

Sherlock agreed with him. John mentally sighed.

The whole exchange had taken less than a second, and their captor was still pacing, demanding answers. Suddenly he froze and stared at Sherlock.

_Shit_ , Sherlock thought, throwing John for a loop. It wasn't that Sherlock didn't swear – in fact, he did it quite often at home. Especially when whatever experiment he was working on that day happened to explode. But he rarely did it in public, and especially in front of _people_ (other than John, who apparently did not count). _He's recognized me._

“Sherlock Holmes,” the man said, leaning in. “I almost didn't recognize you. You've cut your hair and tanned your skin up a bit. The eyes gave you away, though.” He peered down, and then turned toward John. “This must be John Watson, then.” 

John raised his eyebrow but neither confirmed nor denied anything. The man grinned.

“I should introduce myself,” he said, standing back and clasping his hands behind his back before bowing lightly. “Sebastian Moran, at your service.” Next to John, Sherlock stiffened. “You might recognize my name, Mister Holmes. I was Jim Moriarty's second in command.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

_Jesus fucking shitbuggering_ _ **Christ**_ _,_ Greg was swearing next to him. Sally's epithets weren't much better; John was having a hard time concentrating between them and his own internal monologue of curse words. 

Sherlock wasn't saying anything, merely looking at Moran, who had come to stand directly in front of him. They were having the world's most intense staring contest and John was tempted to interrupt it when Sally did it for him by collapsing to her knees.

_John,_ she blurted out. _We need to get out of here._

The waves of her precog swept over the both of them: a sickly feeling followed by the most intense image John had ever seen in his life – Sherlock, eyes wide open in shock and staring upward. He was pale and his blood was pooled around him rather than in his body like it was supposed to be. John felt sick to his stomach and ripped himself away from Sally, physically, dry-heaving and panting. He could just barely see, from the corner of his eye, Moran reaching out and dragging a finger down the side of Sherlock's face while making some unheard comment. Sherlock flinched, and John very quickly reached his limit.

_We are_ _ **leaving**_ _,_ John said. He left zero room for argument, reaching out and taking control of Moran's mind by brute force.

It was disgusting, being in his head. Slimy and slick and full of rage, most of it currently directed at Sherlock, although a rather large portion was _quickly_ being dedicated to hatred of John.

John cut him off and reached out again, this time snagging up the minds of Moran's men who were in the room and freezing the lot of them in place. 

Some of their gear was still piled up near the garage door opening to the cave. John noted that their guns were not there, and he mourned their loss.

“Okay,” he said, as his mental faculties were currently tied up. “It's now or never. Get as much of our gear,” and he pointed, “on the way, but let's begin heading out. I dunno how long I can hold twelve people.”  
As a unit, the four of them began heading toward the outer door. The other twelve people in the room didn't move, but unfortunately two more people burst in through the inner door.

Without really thinking about it, Sherlock used John's ability to reach out and snag control over the two people, enhancing his reach on them using gestalt. They reached the pile of gear; John snagged his camelbak and canteen and as much ammunition for his gun as he could grab; Sherlock snagged several boxes of rations as well as his water supplies. Greg and Sally quickly reacquired their water supplies as well as everyone's helmets. 

“Let's move out,” John said, steadily.

At about a half mile John couldn't reach the generators anymore, and it was with great reluctance that he let the fourteen people (he'd taken control over from Sherlock shortly after they left the base) go.

“They're going to come after us,” John said. “Run. Fast.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

They reached the Land Rover about thirty minutes later. They hopped in and John started it up just as they heard the sharp sound of guns being fired.

“Hold on,” John warned before shooting off through the desert.

They quickly outstripped their pursuers, but John could still see them behind them, so he kept going. In the meantime, Sherlock tended to a few minor injuries and they debriefed each other.

This went fairly well until Greg blurted out, “Moran was in love with Moriarty.”

_“What?!”_

This was said near-simultaneously by the other three passengers of the car.

“I could feel it,” he said, shuddering. “I dunno, maybe love's the wrong word. _Obsessed_ , more like. Tasted like...ugh, I dunno _what_ tastes that horrible. Fucking putrid, is what it was.” He shuddered again. “Thing is, I met Moriarty, and he was an honest-to-God psychopath. _Totally_ incapable of love, and even if he was, he wasn't gay.” He eyed Sherlock. “Despite evidence to the contrary. I can tell.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes in response; John, Sally, and Sherlock frowned in thought.

“You're missing the important part of the picture, though,” Greg continued. “If Moran was obsessed with Moriarty, and Moriarty was incapable of love...”

“That means,” Sherlock said immediately, “that at _best_ Moran's love was unrequited.”

“And at _worst_ ,” John said, picking up on Sherlock's thoughts, “he was being manipulated.”

They were all silent for several minutes pondering that. A few shots rang out behind them and John turned to the south, gunning it.

Thirty minutes later they'd lost their pursuit, which was good: it was getting dark out. John spotted a decent-sized cave off to the distance and pulled the Land Rover in.

“Good cover for the night, at least,” John said, looking around as he parked the vehicle. The cave went back pretty far, and John pulled his pistol out and did a quick sweep of the area to make sure there were no predators hanging out. At the very back of the cave the path turned and led down deeper; he was fairly certain no large animals would go back that far, out of the sunlight.

“We're probably good for the night,” he said, nodding, as he came back. Sherlock was fiddling with the GPS anxiously, and he looked guilty as John walked up to him. “What is it, Sherlock?”

Sherlock let his gaze travel toward the wall of the cave before coming back to John. “I just got our location,” Sherlock said. His frown deepened. “We're in Pakistan.”


	7. “SHERLOCK, STOP BEING A DICK.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has mostly been a genfic, with some relationship stuff sprinkled throughout it, but there's a big old chunk of relationshippy goodness in here. If that's not your thing, feel free to skim or skip. More notes about characterization at the end.

The next morning was a slow start for all of them. They had all slipped into a deep adrenaline crash the night before, the giddiness falling away from them to reveal mortal exhaustion. They'd been so tired that John had just had them set up camp as far back in the cave as possible, clearing away any signs of their entrance as the others did so.

“No watch tonight,” he'd said. They'd set up their tents – there were still camel spiders and good _God_ , did they love hanging about in caves – and quickly fallen asleep.

So when they woke up roughly nine hours later, it was late in the day for them and they were _all_ suffering assorted aches and pains.

John was up first, snapping alert at about 08:00. He carefully climbed out of the nest of sleeping bags that he and Sherlock had cobbled together the night before, slipping his boots on and grabbing a torch from his gear pack before exiting their tent.

He quietly zipped it up behind him and inspected the area surrounding their camp. It was pitch-dark outside the beam of his torch, as they'd gone beyond the bend and thus, beyond any natural light. There didn't appear to be any animals or creepy-crawlies, and John took the opportunity to go several meters away and relieve his bladder.

When he got back he continued to inspect the area. The cave was dark, and it had made a very nice campsite – they were hidden fairly well, but the main benefit was that the sand that made up the floor was fine and soft (and _very_ comfortable to lay down on). He saw some evidence that humans had used this cave sometime in the last thirty years or so, but not within the last few years, so he felt fairly safe using it. In fact, he felt safer in this cave than he had the entire time they'd been in Afghanistan. 

He climbed back into the tent he and Sherlock shared, quickly dressing himself. Once he was finished and back at the Land Rover (which was pulled right into the middle of their camp: the path was relatively wide and hiding the vehicle had seemed like a good idea at the time), he availed himself of some of the baby wipes that Sherlock had requested from Mycroft a week and a half ago back in England, giving himself a miniature sponge bath.

Then he set up the camp stove, which they were going to need to get more fuel for soon. He sighed, pouring out some of his precious water into their kettle and heating it up. He dumped teabags directly into the kettle, correctly figuring that the lot of them were going to need a decent amount of caffeine to get going this morning. 

By the time that was done, John had managed to dig through everyone's packs and pull out ration boxes for all of them, setting them out so that when everyone got moving they could get ready to go nearly immediately. Driving through Pakistan when they had been expressly forbidden from entering the country made him anxious, and he wanted to get it over and done with as quick as possible.

He had no idea what lay behind the Afghanistan border; Moran's group was motley but powerful. He'd just turn around and go back to Jalalabad but more than anything he didn't want to draw attention to the supply base there. It was better if Moran thought they were rogue, hunting him down on their own.

So they would go to Bokar. If the GPS wasn't lying, they were only about an hour away from the town, keeping slow and low to avoid detection. And Steve had just sent him an email not even a week before they left, catching up with him when when he'd gotten a much-delayed newspaper article about the antics he and Sherlock had gotten up to. It was in that email that he'd mentioned they were heading to Bokar.

John had replied to the email in a general sort of way, but the article in question hadn't mentioned his and Sherlock's relationship, and John hadn't thought to bring it up.

It wasn't a huge secret, if he were honest with himself: Captain Steven Gale had been in charge of an American special operations squad, and Captain John Watson had been in charge of a British medical one. The two units had been stuck together for several weeks in a rather tense situation and had shared supplies. They'd all come out of it with a sense of camaraderie, and when they'd been shipped off to Kandahar to debrief the two men had struck up a sort of friends-with-benefits relationship, although by mutual agreement it had been exclusive. They'd parted amicably once the veritable snarl of paperwork had been sorted, some three months later, and they had kept in touch. The last time John had physically _seen_ Steve, he'd been at a hospital at Kandahar Air Base getting ready to ship home after being invalided. 

Still, the other soldier had given him a goodbye to remember, and John's face flushed at the memory. There'd be absolutely _no way_ Sherlock wouldn't pick up on the shared history between the two of them, but John had no interest in ditching his current love life for his past one. 

He took a sip of tea to cover his unease. By the time Sherlock groaned awake and stumbled out of the tent, he'd recovered his composure enough to offer his lover a mug of tea stoically.

Shortly after this Greg and Sally woke up as well, and John outlined his plan to them while they ate breakfast.

“Bokar's only a few miles away from here if the GPS is correct,” John said, pulling the map out and showing them. “The problem is that Moran's people might be watching for us. I don't want to lead an army of psychics, no matter how unruly and untrained, onto any base if I can help it, so we're going to circle around, nice and slow, and come in from the opposite direction. If they're watching, they'll make their move by then.”

“You mean to make Moran believe we're working on our own,” Sherlock said, raising his eyebrow.

“Well, no doubt he's aware of who your brother is,” John acknowledged. “I'm _hoping_ he's dumb enough to believe that Mycroft merely supplied us with our gear.”

“Entirely likely,” Sherlock said, sneering. “I got a decent look in his mind at the end there. He's not very bright.”

“Compared to you or compared to us mortals?” John joked, grinning as he folded up the map.

Sherlock smiled. “There is not a single person at that base who is more intelligent than any of the four of us, John.”

Sally laughed. “I _hope_ that was a compliment, Sherlock.”

“It was, Sally. Rest assured, if I intend to insult your intelligence, you'll _know_.”

Greg laughed as well, and it was in a good mood that they broke camp and headed out.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

An hour later almost _exactly_ , they rolled into Bokar. It was a smallish farming community, and finding the American outpost took a bit of investigation on John's part. They were located in an old house at the east end of town; to look at it, it had belonged to a warlord at one point. There was an honest-to-God blast wall surrounding the house and on the inside, something resembling a courtyard.

John didn't get too good a look at the courtyard, because as soon as they drove into it and stopped they were surrounded by Americans. Americans with large guns. They all _immediately_ put their hands up in the air.

“Identify yourselves,” a very tall black man was saying. John found himself looking down the barrel of an HK416 assault rifle, identical to the ones they'd had to abandon at Moran's base.

It was pretty intimidating from this end.

“John?” a voice said. The black guy moved to the side and John saw a flash of ginger hair. “John Watson?”

John grinned, relief flooding his system as he let his right hand drop so he could shake Steve's proffered hand. “I am _very_ glad to see you, Steve,” he said, grinning.

“It's okay, guys, I'll vouch for John and his friends,” Steve said, giving him a one-over. John flushed; next to him, Sherlock shifted in his seat. “Come on, park that beast and come inside. We have air conditioning.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

The Americans didn't stock tea as a general rule, but Steve had some pretty good coffee to present the group of them as they sat in what the squad liked to call the living room. 

“Even running water,” Steve said, grinning. “We're livin' the high life. Anyway, how about introductions, and then you can tell me what the hell you're doing out here when you're supposedly an invalid.”

John smirked. “Captain Steven Gale,” he said, gesturing toward Steve. “These are my friends Sally Donovan and Greg Lestrade, and –“

“Oh, hey, I recognize _him_ ,” Steve interrupted, shifting over and holding his hand out to Sherlock. “Sherlock Holmes, right? I read all about you coming back from the dead a few weeks ago.” He grinned as Sherlock shook his hand like he was something repugnant. “Our news is a bit delayed out here.”

Steve, apparently, was sitting to close to John for Sherlock's comfort; Sherlock had allowed his face to fall into his default expression of disdain and annoyance. His eyes were flicking between the two men, as well, and John decided to put an end to it.

_Sherlock,_ he warned. Sherlock pointedly blocked him off; it wasn't a barrier that John couldn't break through, but it was unaccountably _rude_ , and it was the first time Sherlock had ever cut him out like that before.

“Ah, yes,” John said, minutely shifting away from Steve and toward Sherlock. “As you've surmised, this is Sherlock Holmes.” He let his eyes drift over Sherlock's form before making up his mind. “My husband.”

Sally and Greg didn't seem to find this pronouncement odd, perhaps because they'd been thinking of the two of them as married for years already. Sherlock, however, swung his eyes toward John. Steve wouldn't be able to tell, and he wasn't entirely certain Greg and Sally would either (depending on how well Sherlock was shielding), but _John_ could tell – Sherlock was shocked.

Steve looked stunned. “I didn't know you had it in you, John,” he said, grinning as he slapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations!”

_John,_ Sherlock said, flushing.

_What?_ John said, defensively. _It's not like we're not practically married anyway, for God's sake._

Sally and Greg weren't included in their link anymore, but the two of them barged in anyway, amused.

_And we didn't even get to throw you a bridal shower,_ Sally teased. 

The two of them had absolutely no expression on their faces physically, but Greg shot the two of them a vision of himself with a complete shit-eating grin taking up half his face. _ **Fabulous**_ _honeymoon destination you two have chosen._

_Shut_ _ **up**_ _,_ Sherlock said, weakly.

_Oh_ _ **man**_ _, did we just witness the world's most awkward and possessive proposal?_ Sally crowed.

_Alright, you two, be quiet,_ John commanded. He quickly performed the mental equivalent of grabbing Sherlock's hand, giving him a psychic hand-squeeze. _We'll talk about this later,_ he told Sherlock privately. 

Once again, the entire exchange had taken only a second or two, and John refocused his attention on Steve.

“Thank you,” he said, grinning back. He eyed Steve. “A bit higher class than my usual standard. I'll forgive you for being surprised.”

Sherlock snorted next to him, and Steve began laughing outright.

“Too right,” he said. He refreshed their coffees while John began, in a vague sort of way – Steve wasn't psychic in the slightest and John wasn't entirely certain what he was cleared to know about – what they'd been called in for.

“Whoa, whoa,” Steve said, standing up and holding his hands up. “You're _Mycroft Holmes'_ brother?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “I take it you've had the misfortune of meeting him. You have my _deepest_ sympathies.”

Steve laughed, but it was an uneasy one. “I met him two days ago. I was in Jalalabad at your supply base, receiving new orders, and he was there ranting at someone about losing something. He was _pissed_. Who the hell is he? Everyone really hopped to when he showed up.”

John shot Sherlock a look, and then delicately said, “Mycroft has his fingers in a lot of pies all over the world. It wouldn't do to piss him off.”

“Unless you're me,” Sherlock said, grinning gleefully. “I can get away with _murder_. Brotherly guilt and all that.”

John smirked. “I think he's got a bit of a soft spot for the both of us, to be honest.”

“Ah, yes, you actually _have_ got away with murder.” This was said with an almost-disdainful flick of the eyes. Once again, Sally and Greg looked totally unperturbed at this statement, but Steve looked unnerved. Which, frankly, John didn't understand – Steve was special operations. He'd killed his own fair share of people, innocent and guilty.

John rolled his eyes. “ _Anyway_ , I'm willing to bet that _we're_ the thing that's lost. We should probably place a call to him soon.”

Greg dug through his pack and pulled out the satellite phone he'd been issued. It wasn't enabled; it didn't even have a power pack in it. Greg would assemble it when he had to place the call.

“Not yet,” John said. He looked at Steve, who was still standing with his arms crossed. “Steve, do you think we could get a shower? Maybe wash our clothes? We reek and frankly, if I'm going to deal with Mycroft, I want to look my best. You can bet he's going to haul ass down here if he's in-country.”

Steve grinned. “We acquired this facility from an honest-to-God Pakistani mafioso. We have _all_ the amenities.” He pointed down the hall toward an open door. “Showers, and the next door over is the laundry room. Make yourselves at home; lunch is in an hour.”

As Sally immediately called dibs and began heading in that direction, Steve pulled John to the side. “You're lucky you came today,” he said. “We're supposed to be abandoning this place tomorrow night, and when we leave it'll no doubt be taken over by insurgents.”

“Thank God for small miracles,” John said, closing his eyes. “They took our rifles. The only gun we have is my SIG.” He pulled it out of the holster and displayed it.

“I _like_ those,” Steve said, grinning as he pulled out a matching one. “Got it off a Brit fellow back at Karachi. Nice guy,” he said, winking. 

“Oy,” John protested, putting his gun back in it's holster and laughing. “You got a thing for accents, mate?”

“You have _no idea_ ,” Steve said, beaming. He clapped John on the shoulder again. “It's good to see you, Johnny. Look, we can probably outfit you with guns and some ammo, maybe even some MRE's.”

“Let's see what happens when we call Mycroft before we make any plans,” John cautioned. “He tends to...I dunno, _completely destroy_ things.” At this, John let his eyes trail over toward his “husband,” and he smirked. “And trust me, it's a family trait.”

Sherlock smirked back, ruthlessly.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Steve set them all up with rooms – the house was nothing more or less than a bloody mansion, and for the first time since they'd set foot in the Middle East they had something resembling privacy. Sally and Greg had their own rooms; Sherlock and John got one together. 

They'd just finished showering and eating lunch when Steve showed them their lodgings for the night, and Sherlock's hair was still damp from the bath when he turned toward John, his eyebrow raised and his arms crossed.

_Husband, John? Really?_ he said, sarcastically.

_Well, I wouldn't have had to make a big grand statement if you hadn't been getting all weird and jealous about a man I dated casually_ _ **five bloody years**_ _ago, Sherlock,_ John replied, crossing his arms as well. _I just wanted to get him off my back. It worked, didn't it? Steve's a great guy, but he's a huge flirt and if I hadn't said we were married, there's a chance he'd still be trying._ Hesat down, frowning. _Why are you so upset about what an American GI thinks about our relationship, anyway? It's not a big deal. Steve's their commander and_ _ **openly**_ _gay, and most of these guys could give a fuck. A quick scan shows me that all but one of them supports gay marriage and the one who doesn't gives exactly zero shits about what_ _ **British**_ _people do. Sally and Greg could care less. Unless –_

John squinted and looked up at Sherlock, who was trying his damnedest to make his face inscrutable. It must have been instinct, because he was _bonded_ to John and he knew damn well that there was very little chance of hiding things from him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, leaning against the doorjamb and attempting to look casual. _You may as well make your deductions where I can_ _ **hear**_ _them, John, because they're written all over your face._

_I can only think of two reasons why you'd be putting up this big of a fuss about it,_ John said, slowly. He looked down at his hands. _Either you_ _ **don't**_ _want to marry me and the idea disgusts you..._ A quick glance at Sherlock showed no change in his expression, and John found himself actually _afraid_ to look closer into his mind. Stunned, he realized that once he and Sherlock got together, he'd always expected the two of them to go before a registrar and make it official. At some point. The idea that Sherlock might not _want_ that hadn't occurred to him, but it was exactly the sort of thing he'd come to expect of the younger man. He half-expected a diatribe about the uselessness of civil unions as a whole and how marriage was a sexist remnant of the misogynistic patriarchy that his bloody _brother_ belonged to.

A war zone was really _not_ the place to be having this discussion, John thought to himself.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. _Or?_ he prodded him.

_Or you actually_ _ **do**_ _want to get married,_ John said. His mental voice was very quiet as he said it. 

_There are several theories you missed,_ Sherlock pointed out. _Namely, that this being my first serious relationship, I've entertained the idea but been unsure of when it's considered an..._ _ **appropriate**_ _time to broach the subject. And that having to masquerade that it's already happened is annoying and hurtful._

John blinked. _I hadn't considered that,_ he admitted. _Wait,_ and he squinted up at Sherlock. _Wait, is that the right one or was that just a theory that you were offering?_ Sherlock was silent and John pointed out, _I'm just checking, because with you I never know._

Sherlock pointedly looked toward the wall opposite John and made a mental noise that John took as assent.

_Jeez_ , John said, running his hand down his face. _I didn't_ _ **know**_ _, Sherlock, but that doesn't change anything. I've been wondering, the last few weeks, what to even_ _ **call**_ _us. Married probably comes the closest._ He stood up and walked toward Sherlock; as he approached, the younger man visibly relaxed. By the time he was standing next to him Sherlock had transferred his gaze back to John and let his arms drop to his side. The last two weeks hadn't afforded them a great deal of opportunities to display affection toward each other, and as John put a hand on Sherlock's arm, the taller man's eyes fluttered closed.

Sighing, John drew him into his arms. They weren't the sort of couple to indulge in public displays of affection, although personnel with the Scotland Yard had quickly got used to seeing the two of them locked in an embrace, or the occasional absentminded kiss shared between the two of them. But the fact that they hadn't shared a simple hug in nearly a week, except to sleep, made John uneasy. He shouldn't fall back into his soldier persona so easily; Soldier John didn't give affection, he did what was necessary to save lives and destroy the enemy. Regular John wasn't very fond of Soldier John, and especially not when he had the man he intended to spend the rest of his life with next to him.

_We should have had this talk months ago, to be honest,_ John admitted. _It was easy to just fall into being us with sex, but_ _ **I**_ _know better. The 'where is this going?' talk is normally an issue after a few months,_ _ **especially**_ _when the people involved are living with each other. Then again,_ and at this he leaned away from Sherlock slightly, smirking, _there's not really anything about us that could even remotely be considered_ _ **normal**_ _._

Sherlock looked inordinately pleased about that statement. They were quiet for several seconds, which felt like _forever_ in telepathic terms, before Sherlock spoke.

_So? Where_ _ **is**_ _this going?_

John leaned back into Sherlock, quiet again. Thinking. He wasn't the type who was prone to big, romantic declarations, and generally speaking Sherlock wasn't the type to demand them. If John had to guess, he'd think that perhaps coming face-to-face with an ex-lover of John's made him uneasy. Sherlock's ego could be terribly fragile at times, and John wasn't so surprised to know that it needed fluffing; after all, that had been his sole job for the first few months of their friendship.

_Incidentally, if you make any sort of statement about this being_ _ **girly**_ _of me, I will_ _ **snap your neck**_ _,_ Sherlock commented, breaking the silence.

_I would never,_ John said, almost offended. _You pay entirely too much attention to your hair, Sherlock, but you're_ _ **still**_ _not girly in the slightest. If I wanted someone girly, I'd be_ _ **with a girl.**_

John's eyes weren't on Sherlock's face, but he could practically feel his satisfied smile.

_And to ward off a rant about the gender binary –_ John began. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

_I won't do that to you again. I_ _ **promised**_ _,_ he said. _But back to the matter at hand, if you're done stalling._

John grinned up at his lover. _**Not**_ _stalling. I meant what I said. I would rather have proposed properly, but it was always my intention to marry your insane arse._

Sherlock's return smile was brilliant, if a bit predatory, and he began backing the two of them up. As Sherlock led him toward their bed, John flicked a brief thought out to Sally and Greg that perhaps they ought to not interrupt them for a half hour or so.

_A half hour,_ _ **really**_ _, John?_ Sherlock said, inserting himself into the psychic link he'd set up with their friends. _Do you really think so_ _ **little**_ _of me?_

_Sherlock, we're in the middle of war zone,_ John pointed out.

_Still, I think this requires at least an_ _ **hour**_ _of private time,_ Sherlock said, sternly. John telekinetically flipped the locks to their door to the locked position.

_Good God, you two, tone it down in there,_ Greg said. _Sherlock,_ _ **stop being a dick**_ _. John, he's right, getting engaged requires at_ _ **least**_ _an hour of sex. Both of you,_ _ **please**_ _damp down on your emotions as they're making me nauseous._ Pause. _I'm going to block the two of you now, and unless a bomb goes off I'm not setting foot in there._

_Yech,_ Sally agreed. The two of them withdrew from the link, and Sherlock turned to his fiance, smirking.

_A half hour,_ he said, sarcastically.

John smirked. In reply, he took off his shirt, letting it flutter to the floor. It had the salutary effect of distracting one Sherlock Holmes for nearly the entirety of the hour they'd allotted themselves.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Later that night, after dinner had ensured that everyone was well-fed and content, the four of them and Steve took up an inner, soundproof office at the center of the mansion. The satellite phone should still work there, but it would afford them privacy.

Greg assembled it quickly, and before John was really ready for it, the phone was ringing. Mycroft answered, sounding as panicked as John had ever heard the man sound before. Belatedly, he realized that Mycroft was probably remembering those horrible months after Sherlock's supposed death, and he felt better about calling tonight rather than postponing until tomorrow.

“Sherlock,” he said, his voice tense. “John. I know the group of you isn't anywhere in Afghanistan so please explain to me what's going on.”

John winced. “We're in Pakistan.”

They waited for the other shoe to drop. Mycroft exhaled. 

“I had hoped you would heed my warning,” he said.

“Just over the border,” John continued, hurriedly. “How secure is this line?”

“Exceedingly so,” Mycroft replied. John could _hear_ him rolling his eyes.

“Right, then,” John said, rolling his eyes back. “We're in Bokar with a group of American special operations GI's. Friends of mine. We've kept out of sight and as far as I can tell no one knows we're here.”

“We've kept them indoors, sir,” Steve said, respectfully. “My guys have been running patrols every hour on the hour and we've got no interference.”

There was a moment of silence before John realized that Mycroft was expecting him to make an introduction.

“Mycroft Holmes, this is Captain Steve Gale,” John said. “Very old friend of mine, very trustworthy. He's the only other person in this room right now, outside of our squad.”

Mycroft sighed. “Sherlock?”

“There's trouble,” Sherlock said, steepling his hands in front of his face as he leaned back in his chair. “As far as I can tell, we have less than two weeks before they plan on launching a strike on London.”

Mycroft made a disagreeable noise. “I'm coming to Bokar.”

“We need more ammo and new assault rifles,” John interjected, before the elder Holmes could hang up the call.

“You'll be re-outfitted as needed when I arrive. _Do_ try not to die in the meantime. I should be there within three hours,” Mycroft said. He sounded exasperated. 

“Three hours,” Greg commented, after he hung up the phone. “Three _bloody_ hours. He must still be in Jalalabad.”

Sally shivered. “How long do you think he's been in-country?”

“Not too long,” Sherlock replied, smirking. “You know how he hates field work.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Mycroft showed up in an Apache helicopter that landed directly in the courtyard, much to Steve's chagrin. A squad of men immediately jumped out and began unloading several crates as Mycroft and Anthea calmly walked into the building.

“Captain Gale,” Mycroft said, with absolutely no introduction picking out the man. He did not shake his hand. “It is my understanding that you were planning to abandon this location tomorrow.”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve said, scratching the back of his head.

Mycroft's smile did not reach his eyes. “I have brought sufficient supplies to extend your stay through the end of the week.”

Steve looked startled. “Uh, thanks?” he said.

“Don't worry about it,” John said, rolling his eyes as he stepped forward, drawing Mycroft's attention. “A permanent state of confusion is a side-effect from being around a Holmes brother.”

“Quite,” Mycroft said. He looked to visibly be restraining himself from rolling his eyes, which amused and delighted Sherlock.

The supplies were unloaded; a very specific set of crates was set off to the side in the entrance foyer, but the remaining supplies were distributed to Steve's squad. As the chopper and the squad of men who had been in it departed, Sally, Greg, John, Sherlock, Steve, Mycroft and Anthea holed up in the soundproof office, which quickly became cramped. 

It was late, and all of them were tired, including Mycroft; startled, John wondered when he'd started being so sensitive to the differing facades of the elder Holmes brother, but instead he shook his head. Really, they all ought to be sleeping.

There was a slight knock at the door. Steve answered it, coming back with a full carafe of coffee, mugs, and a platter of munchies scrounged from the former crime lord's kitchen, as well as Kevin Holland, his second in command.

“If this is a Brits-only thing,” Steve began, looking directly at Mycroft with absolutely no fear in his face, “tell me and we'll scarper. If it's anything that could threaten the United States, this is my business too, and Holland has the same security clearance I do.”

Mycroft regarded the two of them with something resembling surprise. John grinned.

“Mycroft, your brother chose to make friends with me, so clearly I'm not a _complete_ moron. What makes you think that I choose complete morons for friends?”

Mycroft sniffed and nodded, gesturing for Steve and Kevin to find seats. Then he turned to Sherlock.

“I believe you had something you needed to tell us,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock let out a breath. “We have a little over a week before the Brethren plans to move. The date that stood out the most in _his_ mind – and those of the people around him – was June 16.”

“But that's –“ John began.

“Yes. One year since I faked my death,” Sherlock said. “And one year since Moriarty died.”

Mycroft blinked. “What does _Moriarty_ have to do with this?”

“The leader of the Brethren,” John said, leaning in and putting his hands in front of him, clasped, on the table. “Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's right-hand man.”

“Ah, I've heard of this guy,” Steve said. Everyone's head swiveled toward him in disbelief. “No, _really_. The people around here are terrified of him. They say he can control your thoughts, that he's a monster. Whenever you hear he's been in town, it's almost _always_ associated with a death count.”

“That wouldn't surprise me,” Sherlock said. Anthea shifted and handed a tablet computer to Mycroft, who examined it.

“Ah, Sebastian Moran,” Mycroft said, leaning back in his chair as he read off of the screen. “Dishonorably discharged from Her Majesty's army eight years ago. For torturing civilians. His discharging officer was of the opinion he was a true psychopath, incapable of understanding concepts such as empathy. He saw no wrong in what he'd done, because he didn't see his victims as real.”

“He's a broadcasting empath,” Sherlock said, cocking his eyebrow at Mycroft. “I'd say he understands empathy _quite_ well.”

“Ah. That could be a problem,” Mycroft admitted.

“No, the _problem_ is that they've somehow got the funding to develop a very specific virus strain,” Sherlock said. He stood and began to pace in what little space was available in the office. “A group of scientists in Geneva have identified the appropriate section within the human genome that makes one psychic. Right now it's just pop science, but within a year or two they'll be able to prove it, and it'll change _everything_.” He stopped in his tracks and inhaled. “Moran's got hold of that research and they've somehow developed a virus that psychics are immune to. Unfortunately, it seems rather fatal to the rest of the human population. He intends to attack London and then hold the rest of the world ransom.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Steve said. His second, sitting next to him, had stiffened – with good reason, as he was a clairvoyant himself. “ _Psychics_?”

“Steve,” John said, laying a hand on his friend's arm. “Psychics _are_ real. You're the only person in this room who isn't one.”

Steve wasn't stupid by a long shot, and it only took him a few seconds to connect the dots. He jerked his head toward Kevin, who flushed. It made his skin unusually red, which looked interesting in contrast to his fair-white hair.

“I'm a finder,” he muttered, crossing his arms. “I _find_ things.”

“That's why we're here,” John said, urgently. Steve was confused, and he was never amiable when he was confused. “Sally's a precog – she can tell the future – and Greg can sense other people's emotions. Sherlock's a finder too.” He exhaled. “I'm a telepath and a kinetic. We're...well, I wouldn't call us special operations, but we're here to stop Moran.”

“Psychic terrorists,” Sherlock said, succinctly. “Bent on destroying everyone who isn't a psychic.” He blinked. “Incidentally, the disease is airborne, so blowing the compound up should probably be our _last_ resort at this point.”

Steve let out a huge gust of air. “Right.  _Psychics_ . Okay. I can deal with this,” he said. He inhaled again and let it out. “Right. What do we do?”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

It was a question easier said than done, and after several hours of trying and failing to hash out details, the group agreed that a good night's rest was what was needed. It was coming up on half past one when they finally broke for the evening.

Steve organized rooms for Mycroft and Anthea – inner rooms, rooms without windows. It wouldn't do for someone to assassinate the British government. By the time 02:00 rolled around, the entire house was silent but for the three men on watch.

Steve and his group were up at 06:30, as was their standard, but he gave his men strict orders to let their visitors sleep until 08:00. When the lot of them were woken up, breakfast was ready and waiting, and the two men on Steve's ten-person squad who were charged with communal cooking had managed to scrounge up an entire urn for coffee in the inner office. They'd also managed to find several pitchers for water (all filtered, just to be on the safe side) and more snacks to keep them going through the day.

“Our sanctum,” John said, throwing his arms out theatrically as they entered the room. Sherlock snorted.

The group assembled, all in varying stages of wakefulness. First, Mycroft gave them a brief report of the things going on at home.

“John, Sergeant Donovan, you will both be reassured to know that Harriet Watson has maintained a sober state since your departure,” he said. “We have a watch on her, naturally.”

“Thanks,” John said, stunned by the courtesy. Sally's hands flexed but she didn't say anything.

“Quite. The Metropolitan Police Department is ticking along at it's average rate, which is to say, slightly worse than usual but not badly. We've arranged an additional week of paid leave off for the two of you, incidentally,” Mycroft said, looking toward Sally and Greg. “You'll be compensated for it.”

“I'd say thanks, but I have a feeling it wasn't your doing,” Greg said, snorting. He turned toward Anthea. “Thanks.”

For the first time in the three years John had known the woman, she flushed. John grinned.

“I regret to inform you that while you've been gone, Mrs. Hudson has run a thorough decontamination of 221b Baker Street,” Mycroft continued, as if the exchange hadn't even happened.

“ _What?_ ” Sherlock said, sitting upright.

“Oh, the _horror_ ,” John said grinning. Greg was grinning as well. In the six months since Sherlock had come back, the flat had more or less degenerated back to the state it had been during his original stay there, and there was nothing Greg or John could do to keep up with the mess-making chaos that _was_ Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock looked _spectacularly_ disgruntled for someone who had just (essentially) been told that their mother had cleaned their bedroom for them. John was pretty sure he'd had some experiments squirreled away, waiting for him and his eminent return. He hoped to _God_ that Mrs. Hudson had managed to find and destroy them.

“Right,” Steve said, smiling as he drew the attention of everyone in the room. “I've had a solid few hours to get my head around the revelations from last night, so let's get back to those. As charming as this conversation is.”

“Okay, so,” John said, pulling a pad of paper and a pen toward him from the pile of them in the center of the table. He began to write. “The way I see it, we have three main objectives here.”

Sherlock frowned but didn't say anything, opting to listen.

“One, we have to stop the attack, which in this case most likely means confiscating the biological weapon.”

“I have a few ideas on that score,” Anthea interjected. A slow smile began to creep across John's face.

“Do you, now?” he said. Oh, this woman was a _delight_. Mycroft looked particularly smug.

“Yes, but let's wait until you've finished,” she said. Clearly she was not at all intimidated by the lot of them. Irrationally, John _liked_ it.

“Right,” he said. “Objective two: we need to destroy the base and the terrorists inside of it, _after_ we've removed the chemical threat,” he said. There were general nods around the room. “And three: We need to track down their funding source.”

“Yes, that,” Mycroft said. He looked...scary. Like he was hunting. “That was a big portion of the reason I didn't want you in Pakistan. It's coming through here, and if their benefactor is located within Pakistan, we may have alerted them to our presence.”

“Huh,” John said. “Pakistan. It could be freaking _anyone_ ; there are a _lot_ of very rich people scattered throughout this portion of the world.”

“Yes,” Mycroft agreed. “But not so many who are also psychic.”

For the first time, Kevin spoke up.

“Who says they're psychic?”

Sherlock snorted. “Please,” he said, waving his hand. “Why would they pay for a disease that would kill them off too?”

“Why would Adolf Hitler aim to create a master race that looked nothing like him?” Kevin asked, reasonably. “I don't think you should rule out the non-psychic. Maybe they don't know exactly what's being done with their money; maybe they're just _that_ insane.”

The room went quiet and Steve grinned.

“Now you know why I keep him around,” he said. “On that note, we need _ideas_.”

“Nothing can move forward until we remove the biological threat,” Anthea said. She put her hand in toward the center of the table, commanding the attention of everyone there. “Captain Watson, last night you and Sherlock told us the story of infiltrating Moran's base. I believe you may have left something out, namely that you've learned how to use the gestalt technique.”

John's grin grew bigger. “I may have forgot to mention, yes,” he said. “I've only done it once.”

“Now that you have access to that ability,” Anthea plowed on, “I believe that you need to take it to the next level.”

“What next level?” John asked. Anthea grinned; it was a devious smile and John found that he didn't trust it one bit, even if it did suit her. 

“Teleportation.”

They were all very quiet for several minutes. Then John turned to Steve.

“We’re going to need a bigger generator.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sherlock probably seems pretty woobie here. I'm going based on the fact that he really is out of his depth as far as this subject goes, and he's relying on John to lead him through it.
> 
> I prefer John; he's my favorite character. But people always compare me to Sherlock – I tend to talk very fast and make assumptions about people that wind up being true and I'm very, very unintentionally rude (Autism diagnosis is starting to make sense now). I'm certainly not _just_ like him – I'm relatively clever, but I'm no prodigy, and I'm absolutely _balls_ at inductive reasoning (trust me, I've tried). The conversation that John and Sherlock have here is heavily based on the conversation my husband and I had at that point in our relationship – because I was out of my depth and relying on him to take me through the Serious Relationship steps, and he (forever the Watson to my Holmes) didn't realize at the time how odd and overwhelming it was for me.
> 
> So the majority of my assumptions about how Sherlock might feel in this case are based from my own personal experiences as someone in a similar situation. He reacted similarly to the way I did, up to and including the comment about the gender binary. I apologize for inserting some of myself into the character, but fuck it, that's what fanfiction is for, right?
> 
> _(Insert “insertion” joke here. lol.)_


	8. THE HANGED MAN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that I took an extra day to get this out. I got sidetracked by a plotbunny that forced me to write [Marked](http://archiveofourown.org/works/405138), a oneshot that I woke up with stuck in my head. It took most of Monday, and then most of Tuesday I was looking at pictures of hedgehogs. I WANT A HEDGEHOG. Did you know that people keep them as pets? And they're TOTALLY LEGAL in Nevada, where I live!
> 
> My thought process during the writing of this chapter: hedgehogs hedgehogs hedgehogs hedgehogs. I want one. _I want one_. I will name him Mycroft.
> 
> More notes at the end of the chapter.

John sat in the soundproof office by himself.

Despite claims of soundproofing, he could hear – physically, not psychically – the movement of people outside. It was less outright sound and more the creak of floorboards and the slam of distant doors shutting, but he could hear it nonetheless.

This, he decided, was a _good_ thing. He was slowly breaking through some of the barriers within his own mind, developing a permeable shield that allowed him to expand his senses. Something that might be conducive to what he'd been trying to do for the last two days.

There was a window in the office. It was a bulletproof, supposedly sound-proof window, but it was a window nonetheless, and outside of it sat a generator. Mycroft had had it shipped in with him on Anthea's recommendation, and it was quite powerful for such a small thing. Special government technology, he expected; still, it was relatively quiet, which is what he needed at this moment. 

He wondered if Mycroft might indulge him in relocating this puppy back to 221b Baker Street for him. He doubted it.

For the last two days he'd been trying, desperately, to teleport. He could _move_ things, no doubt: weight seemed to be no object as long as he had access to a decent power source. He had, just the day previous and using the generator outside the window (and entirely on instinct), moved the contents of a small landslide, weighing several tons, away from the road. The villagers had no idea what had happened and were calling it a miracle from God.

John smirked to himself slightly; he could remember a certain consulting detective giving him advice not so long ago about heroes and him not being one. He supposed that he could say the same thing about gods.

_Focus, Watson,_ he thought to himself. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind before focusing on the box in front of him.

It wasn't much, just a smallish road case full of destroyed electronics. It was his practice dummy.

Intrinsically, he knew how much it weighed and massed. He supposed that was an innate talent a telekinetic would be born with; he could reach out and _feel_ the thing, know _exactly_ how the electronics were crammed into it and how much energy he needed to access to transport it.

But to move it instantaneously from one place to another, well, that was an entirely different game. He wasn't even sure such a thing was actually possible, but their plan hinged on him being able to teleport the crates of disease out of the base and into Mycroft's hands – to be broken down, studied, destroyed, and a cure developed from it. Mycroft and Sherlock were both certain that if they could just see the chemicals that made up the suspension fluid and the way the vials were packed, they could identify, at least, which scientists had worked on it and from them, who was playing for all of this.

At the thought of Sherlock, he tensed, and he realized what he was missing. Sherlock and he were two halves of a psychic whole. He couldn't do this without him.

To need Sherlock Holmes to be grounded was a thing of lunacy, but there it was. Closing his eyes, John reached out, seeking Sherlock's mind.

Sherlock and Greg were overseeing the intake of some supplies Mycroft had ordered for this operation; Sally, he could see off in the distance, was talking to Anthea about something that, if her gestures were anything to go by, involved hand-to-hand combat.

He could feel Sherlock's question before he asked it.

_I need you up here with me,_ John said, smiling to himself. _Can Greg spare you?_

 _I should hope so,_ Sherlock replied. John could feel him rolling his eyes. _It's basic manifesting and he's doing the bulk if it anyway._

John insinuated himself inside Greg's mind and let him know he was taking Sherlock as Sherlock turned away from his friend without a word. Greg smirked.

“See you later, Sherlock. Tell John I said hi.”

“Tell him yourself,” was Sherlock's parting word.

_Such a friendly,_ _ **caring**_ _man,_ Greg said to John as he began severing the link between them. _I totally understand what you see in him._

John grinned at the room around him. If his smile was a little manic, well, there was no one there to call him on it.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Sherlock didn't have to actually do anything, just be nearby, but the process engaged him enough to keep him from being bored. He tethered in to John's psyche, holding him psychically and assisting when needed. He took the edge off of the exhaustion when it was warranted. 

Still, after an hour of trying they'd had no success. The box floated, hovered, crashed, and did any number of relatively mundane things, but it did not teleport.

“I'm hungry,” John complained after the hour. He glanced at his watch. “No wonder, it's half two. We missed lunch.”

“Lunch was well before I made an appearance,” Sherlock said, absentmindedly dropping a kiss on John's head as he stood up. “I'll get something. Tea?”

“God, _yes_ ,” John said, rolling his head on his neck as Sherlock exited the room. Mycroft had brought with him real, honest-to-God _tea_ and strangely, the Americans seemed rather keen on it too. It had replaced all of the coffee for the day except for the initial morning cup.

“Good enough anyway,” Steve had said. “Tea'll hydrate you. Coffee won't. This _is_ the desert, after all.”

Holland was a finder, and it turned out his cousin – also Holland, but his given name was Bryan – was a telekinetic-telepath like John. Although he was, Bryan had pointed out, nowhere _near_ John's league, even _with_ the aid of gestalt. There was also a matchmaker in the group with some minor telepathic abilities. He preferred to keep that fact to himself, however, and for good reason: he was the intimidatingly large black soldier who'd had a gun pointed at John several days previous, and he felt his matchmaking talents were an affront to his masculinity.

That he was also the man who didn't support gay marriage didn't surprise John in the slightest. Sally said he'd change his mind in the future, and that fact brought him some comfort. 

Sherlock interrupted his musings when he re-entered, balancing two trays of food and two mugs of tea precariously.

“Jeez,” John said, jumping up to help his fiance with the load. He snagged his tray – _clearly_ his, because it had larger portions – and set it down at his spot. Next, he snagged his cup of tea (milk, no sugar, extra-strong. How well Sherlock knew him).

Now that Mycroft had brought with him sufficient foodstuffs, their meals had been surprisingly pleasant. The two men in charge of the cooking – Bryan Holland, the telepath-kinetic, and Ken Costa, a sergeant from New York – had both done time in the food service industry prior to their enlistment. Bryan had worked as a line cook at a Denney's his senior year of high school. Ken had actually been a 24-year-old, well-respected sous chef at a restaurant in New York City when the September 11, 2001 attacks had forced him to rapidly reassess his life goals. The very next day he presented himself to a recruitment station; surprisingly, he'd found he liked being a soldier.

That John knew these things without asking didn't seem to surprise either man. Bryan, naturally, knew that John was a telepath. Ken was taciturn and grumpy and possessed of a surprising belief in ESP.

Needless to say, while they weren't exactly dining on fine steak cuts every night, the food had increased in quality. The chicken tikka masala that he was currently eating, for instance – far, far better than the stuff Sally had bemoaned the week previous.

Had it only been a week, truly? John blinked in astonishment, and he could feel Sherlock's amusement. It felt like they'd been here, in this godforsaken desert, for...God, fucking _months_.

“It's been a bit more than a week, actually,” Sherlock said aloud, smirking as he navigated around his smaller portion of chicken. “I've heard that the desert tends to stretch observable time. Might make for an interesting experiment some day.”

“Yes, well, let's go to a more pleasant desert next time,” John said, exasperated. “I'm really keen on the idea of a desert where we don't get shot at. You know, next time we plan for one.”

Sherlock's smirk turned into an outright grin. They finished their meals in relative silence and, surprise surprise, Sherlock cleaned up around them. He brought back fresh tea and sat next to his lover while he tried _again_ to teleport the dread roadbox.

“I'm starting to hate this thing,” John said, gesturing to the box several hours later. He sipped his tea – Sherlock had finally realized how much they were going to consume and had brought back an entire pot of the stuff. The warm liquid was a comfort as he tried to push past his own inhibitions. 

“I don't blame you,” Sherlock said, boredly doodling on a pad of paper. He bounced his leg, a nervous habit that he'd never been able to break, but somehow managed to keep his lines straight and even. “It's quite ugly; even ignoring all of the symbolism you've built up in your head about it, it's unpleasant to look at. A silver and black contraption of doom, it is.”

John tipped his head back and laughed heartily. Sherlock smiled at him.

“Once more before dinner, then, perhaps?” the detective suggested. He reached out and grabbed John's hand. 

Glancing up at the clock, John was surprised to discover that he'd spent the majority of the day at this task; the sun was starting to set outside and it was coming up on 18:00.

John closed his eyes, gripping Sherlock's hand as he forced himself to relax. Then he opened his eyes and focused on the box. It weighed and massed roughly five kilograms. Just to reassure himself of this, he lifted it telekinetically. Yes, five kilograms.

He exhaled and, without letting it fall to the table, he tried to move the mass from one end to the other.

_C'mon_ , he thought, desperately. He gave it a nudge and –

He blinked. The box was gone.

There was a clatter at the other end of the table; the box had landed and tipped over, spilling open and dumping it's cache of circuit boards and dead LCD screens.

“Did I just –“ John began.

“You did,” Sherlock said, grinning. He stood and shoved the mess back into the box. “Try again.”

John did it. Again and again and again. He'd _actually_ teleported something, possibly the first person _ever_ to do it.

Granted, he needed to teleport what might be a solid ton of biohazardous waste with relative finesse and all he'd done currently was teleport a box of burnt-out walkie talkies.

But it was a start.

“It'll do, I suppose,” John said, grinning at Sherlock. And then Sherlock was kissing him and he didn't much care about teleportation after that.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

That very night, the leadership – John and Sherlock, Sally and Greg, Mycroft and Anthea, and Steve and Kevin – sat in the cramped office as John demonstrated what he'd taught himself to do.

“This is very, _very_ good,” Anthea said, grinning. Then her face fell slightly. “Unfortunately you're going to have to get close enough to the base to teleport them out; the cases are psychically shielded.”

“Won't that prevent them from being teleported out?” John asked.

She shook her head. “No, nothing can really prevent teleportation or telekinesis. That's just not how it works, to be honest. But you can shield things from being found by a clairvoyant or a psychic.”

They were all silent for a few moments before Kevin spoke up. “What about if you could find something inside the room they were in?”

Heads turned toward him and he flushed again. “Well, you guys know that Bryan and I are cousins. We grew up together and we're both psychic. We used to do this thing to spy on people – we'd link up and he'd lift something, and float it out of our sight, and I'd 'find' it. Then, because we were linked, he could see it again, and the area around it. He could navigate some more until I needed to 'find' it again. It acted like a sort of camera. We used to do it with stinkbugs.”

Sherlock sat upright. “That,” he pronounced, “is _brilliant_.” His face was glowing with enthusiasm at the very idea of a psychic exercise he hadn't tried yet.

Steve smirked again. “I _told_ you there was a reason we keep him around.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Sherlock wanted to try it that very night, but reasonably, John pointed out, they should wait until tomorrow morning.

“It's dark out, Sherlock,” John said. “I'm exhausted from all of my practicing today. Tomorrow will do.”

“We have _eight days_ , John,” Sherlock snapped, pacing in their bedroom. “ _Eight days_ until they plan to attack our home. We have to move quickly.”

“We're leaving tomorrow night if this goes well,” John pointed out. “We need rest tonight, because lord knows you're the only one of us who can go that long without sleep.”

This mollified Sherlock somewhat, and he crawled into bed with John. He was still scowling, though, and John was worried that he wouldn't sleep a wink.

He pulled Sherlock closer to him, letting his eyes fall closed as he opened the psychic pathway between the two of them. Sherlock knew exactly what he was doing, but surprisingly, he didn't protest, letting John's own exhaustion fall around him as they drifted off.

Sherlock had one last thought that John heard before they fell asleep: that sleeping was especially worth it when he woke up wrapped around John. 

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Greg Lestrade had been living with John Watson for coming up on a year now, and six months of that year was spent with Sherlock as well. He'd thought several times throughout that six months that nothing could surprise him anymore. After the _spleens_ , good God, nothing could surprise him. Nothing.

He was _wrong_.

It was very early the next morning and the day had started out badly to begin with: he'd opened his eyes at 05:30 to see a very excited Sherlock Holmes staring at him in his sleep.

“Wake up,” Sherlock said. He was so excited he was almost vibrating.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Sherlock, you can't just stare at someone while they're sleeping!” Greg said, jerking back and hitting his head against the wall along the side of his bed. 

Greg got a pulse of _confusion/citronella/annoyance/orange_. It flickered quickly, as Sherlock's emotions tended to, before the younger man got control of himself and regarded Greg.

“Why not?” Sherlock asked, genuinely not understanding. “I do it to John all the time.”

“Yes, well,” Greg said, sitting up and bringing his hand to his forehead. “You sleep next to him and you're _marrying_ him. There are different rules there.”

Sherlock was silent for several moments before he stood up. “I apologize,” he said, sincerely. “But you do need to wake up. _Now_.” With this, he left the room.

Greg blinked sleep out of his eyes a few times and sent his mind out in search of John's. John, it seemed, had just woken Sally up with a great deal more decorum than Sherlock had done for him. 

_Ah, you're awake,_ John said in greeting. _Good. We're going to try a few psychic exercises and get outfitted if they work; we'll be leaving tonight once the sun goes down._

_Right,_ Greg said. He stood up and began reaching for clothes. _Do you think you could, perhaps, explain to Sherlock the correct way to wake someone up?_

John sent him a deliberate taste of his own unique brand of confusion, which tasted like vanilla cupcakes for some ungodly reason. It was a question.

Greg used John's trick and showed him the memory of waking up with an excitable Sherlock Holmes no less than two inches from his face.

He was then treated to a psychic laugh from his conversational partner, which was an unusual experience: So much more than speech passed through the psychic form of communication. They never only spoke in just words, although the words were there. The words they spoke into each other's minds were imbued, always, with a specific sense that clarified questions, and were often accompanied by pictures, colors, tastes, textures. 

Psychic laughter was new, though, and it was actually rather lovely. Greg determined that he'd find out if _everyone's_ psychic laughter sounded like John's – tinkling, bright, happy, it was like a happiness _bomb_ – or if it was unique to the man himself.

Giddily, Greg grinned into the darkness as he pulled his trousers on over his underpants and then shoved his feet into his shoes. He would be more annoyed about the giddiness, but to be honest it was... nice. His friend had familiar, clean emotions, now that he was allowed to feel them, and occasionally letting them overpower his senses was a relief, a welcome indulgence. 

_I'll mention it,_ John promised, still laughing. _Meet us in the dining room; Ken woke up early just to feed us, so we may as well indulge him._

_You,_ Greg pronounced, pausing in his shoe-lacing, _are starting to sound_ _ **just**_ _like Sherlock._

_Yeah, well,_ John said. This was accompanied by the mental equivalent of a shrug. _It was bound to happen sometime._

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Greg had gotten to know most of Steve's squad over the last few days. Friendly guys, most of them, and they seemed to have a fondness for his tarot deck, which Mycroft had included in his identity kit back in London.

Perversely, Greg enjoyed the aura of mystique it gave him, being able to give tarot readings. He'd never studied the cards like his mother had; memorizing their traditional meanings was about as advanced as he got. Still, his readings were more often starting to come out true, and Sally had started taking an interest. In their off-time, they'd taken to examining the cards and figuring out what each one meant for them. His mother had always insisted that this was an important part of the craft, knowing each card like a friend. It was... _enlightening_.

As was his custom, he pulled out the deck while they were eating breakfast.

“I wonder what today's card is going to be,” Sally said, grinning impishly.

“Are you telling me you didn't dream it?” Greg shot back, smirking as he began shuffling the cards.

“Nope,” Sally said. “I shut it off last night. I figured we'd need a good night's sleep. And that's not a precog, that's just common sense.”

Greg shook his head, laughing, while John and Sherlock peered at him, questions writ on their faces. Ken, who knew about this little ritual anyway, had gone back to bed once the four of them had plates in front of them, or he'd be interested as well.

“Ah,” Greg said, nodding to them. “Every morning I choose a card for the day. It's usually a pretty good indicator to how the day's gonna go.”

“I did not know about this,” John said, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, I usually do it first thing in the morning back at home, when I'm still in my room,” Greg acknowledged. “And sometimes I forget. But while we've been here in Bokar I've done it during breakfast; everyone's always interested to see what I pick.”

He reached out when things felt right and picked a card. Almost immediately his stomach dropped.

“The hanged man,” Sherlock said, raising his eyebrow. Greg swallowed hard.

“It's the martyr card,” he said, slowly, putting the card back into his deck and shoving the whole mess into his pocket. He'd rather forget about it now.

“Yes,” Sherlock acknowledged. “It's also the card you draw when you're about to change the world.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

It was a weird feeling, this dual-talent-linkup Sherlock and John were stumbling through.

The explanation Kevin had given them the evening before had been sufficient for them to get the grasp of the concept, and to an extent it worked – Sherlock could “find” the thing John was floating, feed the image to John, and allow John to navigate. There was a half-second delay, but it wasn't so bad. But it was _weird_ , and John didn't think that feeling would ever go away.

About halfway through John and Sherlock began linking up with Greg and Sally, having determined that they needed more practice working through their psychic bond since it had proven so useful last time they met Moran. They continued practicing until noon, even going so far as to have John teleport based on an image Sherlock was feeding him. It worked spectacularly and they were riding high when they got back to base.

Unfortunately, Mycroft was waiting for them, which was never a good sign.

“We can't afford to wait until tonight for you to leave,” Mycroft warned them. “I've called in a helicopter to come get us; it will drop you off several miles from the base and then continue on to Kandahar Air Base.”

“What's going on?” John asked.

Mycroft's frown deepened. “When you gave us the coordinates of Moran's base we immediately began watching it via satellite. He's started preparations.”

John blinked. “Already?”

Mycroft nodded. “One way or another, he's planning on leaving that base tonight.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

“I have sand _everywhere_ ,” Sherlock grumbled. He'd enjoyed their time at Bokar: air conditioning and shade and clean water made the desert bearable. Being out in it again after he'd just barely managed to lose the tan was hard on the skin and the mind.

“You're not the only one,” Sally said, darkly. “And if you'll take a moment, you'll realize I have more places for sand to _be_. So kindly fuck off.”

John snorted. Mycroft had re-outfitted them with all of the gear they'd started out with; the problem is that as they didn't have a car anymore. They were now _carrying_ it. Which meant none of it could ride outside of the pack, which meant that when a sandstorm had creeped up on them an hour before, they'd managed to get covered in the stuff.

Still, the GPS worked and John's orienteering skills hadn't faded in the few days they'd been at Bokar. They weren't lost, just sandy and tired. It was nearing 17:00; the heat of the day was well past but the slight midafternoon breeze had quickly strengthened after the sandstorm. Zephyrs of hot, dry wind snatched the breath out of their mouths as they struggled toward their goal, chapping their lips and leaving them heaving for lack of proper oxygen.

John and Greg were at least as annoyed with the situation as Sally and Sherlock were. They were just better at wearing out adversity, but after a while even Greg joined in on the bitch-fest.

John was preoccupied with navigation; Sherlock was nominally in charge of the GPS but John had the map, which he trusted more. 

“We should be there in another thirty minutes or so, guys,” John said, quietly. It took the bickering group a few seconds to realize what he'd said.

“ _Finally_ ,” Sherlock sneered. He was downright unpleasant in the heat, and John resolved to never take him to the tropics on holiday. He didn't know where that left them as far as vacation destinations went. Startled, he realized that he should probably start considering honeymoon possibilities; while he harbored absolutely no illusions about the type of wedding ceremony they were likely to have, John was putting his foot down on this particular point. He wanted a nice, long holiday. Somewhere not a desert.

Perhaps a nice trip to _Alaska_.

They could hear the base before they could see it. They crouched in the shadow of what John was pretty sure was the exact same sand dune they'd been in a few days previous. Carefully he peeked over it at the compound. It was bustling with activity; Mycroft had been right, Moran was packing up and leaving.

Quickly, John set up a mental link with Sally and Greg through his and Sherlock's bond. Now the four of them could hold a silent conversation, more secure than any phone or radio could ever be.

_Sherlock, can you remember anything other than the crates from the garage?_ John said, crouching back around the dune. 

The look Sherlock shot him was scathing. _Of course I can, John. Give me a moment._

While Sherlock was sorting himself and his power out, John reached and mentally felt for the energy in Moran's generators. It felt...God, it was like an entire _power station_ , running on wind, sun, and gasoline. Whoever was financing this...this was big. _Really_ big. 

Sherlock shook his head. _No good, Moran's moved everything. He must have figured out we have a finder on our team._

John scowled. _Right, then,_ he said, slinging his pack around. He felt ridiculous digging out a plastic cockroach, but it'd get the job done.

Steve, strangely enough, had been in the possession of an entire _bag_ of the things – they were a rubbery plastic and pretty damn realistic looking. Novelty items, John had thought, until Steve had shaken his head.

“Kurtis gave them to me to prank people with,” he'd said, grinning. Kurtis, Steve's younger brother, was a stagehand who dealt with props on movies. “They're modeled from an _actual_ cockroach corpse; he made thousands of them them for some gore movie a while back and it turned out they only needed a few hundred.” He'd given John five of them; _literally_ , the fake roaches were being used as psychic bugs. It was amusing as all fuck, and the perfect disguise.

He dug one out and handed it to Sherlock, who studied it intently for several seconds before handing it back. _I have it,_ he said. _Go ahead._

John nodded and floated the plastic insect in front of him. He didn't have to tap into the gestalt to teleport it to outside of the garage; it was less than a quarter mile away from them and he'd been there before.

Sherlock grasped his hand and closed his eyes, concentrating. John could “see” what he was seeing, which was a bustle of activity around the little toy cockroach. He quickly teleported it up against the garage door (which was open) and Sherlock found it again, displaying the image to John. He moved it inside a few feet, observing the area when Sherlock found it.

That was how they continued, in little steps. Finally, John found the perfect spot for it, a slightly raised metal lip on the inside of an unshielded lighting fixture hanging from the ceiling. Using this, Sherlock could “find” it and get a view of the entire room.

The crates were still in evidence, although there were several men unpacking a forklift. John swore. They'd have to move quickly.

Suddenly, the light dimmed from behind them, and John looked up. He swore again.

“Hello, boys,” Moran said, grinning. “I had a feeling you'd be back.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

_John, we seem to be pretty bad at this whole evading detection thing,_ Greg commented as they were frog-marched into the base.

_**Seriously,**_ Sally agreed. Sherlock was silent on the matter.

_I never had a problem with it before,_ John mused. They were going through the main entrance, which he'd never seen before. 

_John,_ Sherlock said, quietly, so that the other two couldn't hear him. _I still have a fix on the boxes. Do you think you can teleport them to Kandahar? It looks like they're getting ready to forklift them out, and I'd like to avoid that if possible._

_Should do,_ John agreed. Sherlock fed him an image and he reached out. 

The boxes weren't as heavy as he'd thought they'd be. Once he had them, he didn't need Sherlock's image anymore, so Sherlock quickly switched his focus to a crate in the cargo bay of a very specific airplane, currently located at Kandahar Air Base. He looped the image back to John.

_Can you make that distance?_ Sherlock asked. His worry was understandable; Kandahar was on the other side of the country.

_No problem,_ John said. It wasn't “no problem,” actually; he'd just teleported for the first time the day previous and even then, only a small amount of mass over a kilometer or two. But he'd do his best.

The lights died as John flung the crates – almost everything in the garage, actually, except for the people – into the airplane. They waited a half a second in the dark, hearts beating fast, before the eerie red lighting rejoined them. Almost as suddenly, an alarm klaxon began to report.

Sherlock fed him a new image: the airplane, loaded down with crates and a forklift.

_You did it,_ Sherlock said, triumphantly.

John grinned, giddy in his success. It was short-lived, however, when Moran swung around to look at him manically.

“What. Did. _You._ _**Do?!**_ ” he demanded, coming closer with each fullstop. John let his grin grow wider.

“I neutralized the threat,” John said. “You'll find that you're no longer in possession of your biological weaponry.”

Moran snarled, drawing his hand back. He was quick; the backhand landed across John's face before anyone had a chance to react. His head snapped to the side, dizzying him for a second.

He was still connected to the generators; on instinct, he kinetically threw Moran to the side. He shook his head, clearing it, and he grinned at Moran. It was probably a disturbing vision, he thought, because he could taste the blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

“Your payload,” John lisped through a split lip, taking control of their guards psychically as he advanced on Moran, “Is inside of a government airplane at Kandahar Air Base. It is getting ready to take off and head to Geneva, where it will be analyzed, dissected, and a cure found. _**You've lost.**_ ”

Moran began laughing. “Oh, he said you'd be good, the lot of you,” he said. He was wearing a shielded helmet, which was infuriating; John couldn't take control of his mind. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box. “But I don't think he ever thought you'd get this far.” He stood up and put his thumb over what John could now see was a button. “Luckily for him, he didn't look too closely at our blueprints.”

With a flash, John realized what he was going to do.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” Greg said from behind him. “Who the hell _actually_ installs self-destruct failsafes into their hidden bases of doom? It's like we've fallen into a bad Bond film.”

Sherlock made an agreeing noise. Sally just snorted. John froze in place.

“Very _good_ , Detective-Inspector Lestrade,” Moran said, eying him. Greg froze. “That's right. I did my homework. The big guy knows who _all_ of you are. Yes, even _you_ , Sally Donovan,” he continued. He grinned. “Will we go after Harriet Watson? You'll never know, of course,” he said, flipping a switch on the box, releasing the button to be deployed. “You'll be dead. Maybe we'll just let her rot of alcohol poisoning. She'll get there on her own anyway.”

_Sally,_ _ **ignore him**_ _,_ John tried to say, but it made very little difference. Sally was frantic in her own head. Greg wasn't faring much better.

Sherlock's mind was calm, placid. He mentally encouraged the four of them to stand closer together; John wasn't sure if he was doing it out of instinct or if he had a plan.

_No plan, I'm afraid,_ Sherlock said, quietly. _If we're going to die, I'd rather us do it together._

John nodded. It was very suddenly simple to him. They were going to die. But they'd won. It was fine. Harry would be fine. Mycroft had her under surveillance. He'd make sure she was fine, taken care of. 

He wished to hell and back that he'd never involved Sally and Greg in this. Greg had kids. Sally had Harry. John and Sherlock only had each other.

_Don't think like that, mate,_ Greg said. He'd calmed down somewhat. _We volunteered, and for a reason. The girls'll get to grow up with a mom and with each other. Harry'll survive. She always does. That's all that matters._

Sally had cut off her panic attack as well, almost ruthlessly. _We went into this under full disclosure, John,_ she said. Her mental voice was quiet and strong – Sally, John thought, was made of sterner stuff than he was. _If I can't be with Harry, I'd rather her be alive. If I had to make a choice between the two of us, I'd choose her life over mine. Every time._

John closed his eyes. The entire exchange had only taken a few seconds; Moran didn't seem to realize that they were in contact with each other. 

“Say goodbye,” he said. He pressed the button.

There was an ungodly noise below them. Out of instinct, John threw his hands over his friends; Sherlock's hand clasped his over Sally's back.

The air was sucked out of the tunnel, and then a hot blast hit them full-on. Somewhere to their right, Moran was cackling. Very suddenly, John remembered Greg drawing the Hanged Man that morning at breakfast.

The martyr card. He shuddered as the flames rushed toward them.

And then it was dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually thought out backstories for all ten of the American special operations men in Steve's unit; most of them are named for my friends and family or ostensibly after musicians I like. I couldn't help sneaking some of their stories in!
> 
> The road case John is attempting to teleport looks something similar to this: http://www.roadcasesusa.com/12-microphones-with-compartment-ata-cases/ But without all of that useless foam inside of it.
> 
> One more chapter to go. I hope you guys have enjoyed this; it turned out rather more case-fic-y than I expected it to, although it had rather less Sherlock in it than I expected. Oh well.


	9. I'M NOT USUALLY THAT GULLIBLE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Character death, angst, Mycroft crying.
> 
> FT&T belongs to the descendants of Anne McCaffrey.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's stuck by with this story. It's not the best story on the planet but I had a blast writing it. It was somewhat cathartic in several ways, and more often than not it was fun. I'll miss it, but I have plenty planned for this universe.
> 
> There's a rather self-indulgent set of chapter ending notes that I'd like you to read if you have the time (after you've read the chapter itself; there are spoilers). Thanks.

Mycroft Holmes had never been the sort of man to have emotional breakdowns. It just wasn't really his thing – he was more a fan of understated, vaguely threatening emotional displays. Where others would sob in despair, Mycroft found it more effective to sigh in annoyance and roll his eyes. And where a normal man would scream in anger, Mycroft would merely narrow his eyes in dire contemplation.

None of this emotional restraint on his part helped him in the slightest when he received a phone call – to a cellular phone that only five people on the planet had the number to, one of whom was the Queen of England – from one Captain Steven Gale. Who most certainly was _not_ on the list of people approved to be in possession of it. He frowned at the number on his screen and sat down in the chair in his hastily-purloined office at Kandahar Air Base before answering it.

“Sir,” Steve said, his voice tight. Mycroft sighed. Now he was going to have to go through the whole mess of getting a new number for his secure line, and making sure the appropriate people had it.

“I'm not sure how you got this number, Captain –“ Mycroft began.

“Sir, it's John. And Sherlock.”

Mycroft and Sherlock had spent a great deal of time one afternoon in their youth mocking the phrase “his heart skipped a beat.” The main basis behind their mockery was the fact that it was medically impossible for emotional distress to do something so improbable (and something that was, in fact, reason to be hospitalized) as make your heart _literally_ skip a beat. Sherlock, who had been about ten years old at the time, had sneered at the book that contained the phrase and thrown it across the room, leaving in a flounce.

Even back then, he'd had a flair for theatrics.

Now, Mycroft was experiencing this exact sensation and he had to say, perhaps they had been wrong. Or maybe the one they should have abstained from mocking was the one about the heart pounding in one's throat – because that seemed to be occurring as well.

He cleared his throat, which had very suddenly gone dry – another cliché, he noted absently – before responding.

“Yes?”

Captain Gale inhaled slightly before letting out a rush of breath. “We were about ten miles out when we heard it, sir, about two hours ahead of schedule.”

“Am I to understand that you heard an explosion? Two hours before Sherlock and John were to detonate one?”

Gale let out a stuttering breath. “Yes, sir. There's...there's no one left, sir.”

Mycroft felt like he'd been hit by a ton of bricks – another literary metaphor that he'd thought ridiculous, until just now. He managed to scrounge up enough decorum to thank Captain Gale before hanging up; he wasn't even supposed to have been there, and Mycroft was glad he'd been – he mightn't have known until morning had Gale not disobeyed Mycroft's orders.

Mycroft buried his face into his hands and, for the first time since his adolescence, he let out a ragged breath and began to cry.

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

It _hurt_. He'd lost Sherlock once before, but this was different. Before there had been a chance, because Sherlock was _clever_. But this...this was _real_. This was game-changing. Sherlock, out of his element and against a stupid criminal with a death wish. Sherlock in love was a powerful force; Mycroft knew his brother well enough to know that if John was going to die, Sherlock would want to be right there with him.

After several indulgent minutes Mycroft forced himself to stop being a ninny. He'd have to send out teams to investigate the entire area. Captain Gale would have to be isolated, along with his entire team, in case they'd contracted the virus. They'd have to pick through the mess – there was always the chance that in the rubble, someone had survived. 

As he was ruminating, his PA burst through the doors, waving a file. Her eyes were alight with success – of course, she wouldn't know yet.

“Sir,” she said, displaying the invoice. “The payload is in the airplane, just as we planned. They did...”

She trailed off at his expression, taking in his tear-stained face. She'd never seen Mycroft Holmes cry before; God willing, she never would again. “What's happened?” she asked, quietly.

Mycroft took a moment to compose his voice before speaking. “I just received a call from Captain Gale,” he said. He cleared his throat. “He reported an explosion at Moran's base, several hours before the scheduled demolition. Th-there don't appear to be any survivors.”

He cursed himself for his brief stutter; if he had to show weakness in front of anyone in the world, however, it would be his assistant. She was the most trustworthy person, psychic or otherwise, he'd had the fortune to meet.

Her eyes flew to his. “Captain Watson? Your _brother_ , sir?”

Mycroft shook his head. “All four of them, gone,” he said. He closed his eyes in pain before a brief hope shook him to the core. John had managed to teleport the payload out – perhaps he'd teleported himself and his friends away to safety?

If he'd managed to get the tail end of the generators, before they were destroyed, to power his gestalt...

“Unless you can sense them?” he asked, raising his eyebrow. His assistant closed her eyes, concentrating.

Mycroft, when he'd begun digging through things behind the scenes, had been presented with the curriculum vitae of several promising candidates, and yet, he'd chosen _this_ particular woman. He'd chosen her because she was whip-smart, pretty on the eyes, good at acting, and possessed of a particularly strong clairvoyant talent. His assistant, the one without an official name, was one of (if not _the)_ strongest remote viewing psychic on the planet. She knew Sherlock and John, intimately – her job had entailed watching several hundred hours of surveillance on the two over the years, and when she did come into contact with them she was able to subtly manipulate them on a completely non-psychic level.

If anyone could find them, _she_ could.

After several minutes, her hands flexing around the file folder that held the invoice, she opened her eyes. “I'm sorry, sir,” she said, setting the file folder down on his desk and covering his hand with her own. Grief was writ upon her face. “It's a blank. I can't see anything.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

It was _fucking hot._

Steve squinted out over the landscape. Heat blurred the distant mountains into vaguely purple smudges. Had Sherlock been there, he'd likely have pointed out the similarity in color between the mountains and the bags under Steve's eyes. Of course, if Sherlock were _there_ , Steve wouldn't have gone thirty hours without sleep.

The lack of sleep was what was contributing to the bruise-like apparitions beneath his eyes; the three men he'd brought with him were in the same boat. All of them were running on fumes. Ken Costa was holding the fort down at Bokar while Steve, Kevin, Bryan, and David Sorenson were looking for the impossible. 

John Watson had been a former lover of Steve's, sure, but first and foremost he was a _friend_. Steve had watched the Apache helicopter fly off into the distance and he just _knew_ that this was a suicide mission.

He'd watched for fifteen minutes before turning to Kevin. “You, your cousin, Sorenson. Ready to go in ten minutes with supplies for a week in the field. We'll take John's Land Rover.”

Kevin had grinned. “ _Way_ ahead of you, boss-man. Sorenson's just finished filling up the water tank. We'll be ready in five.”

They'd been a mere ten miles away from the base – they'd taken a risk and gone the direct route – when they heard it, and then seconds later _felt_ it: a sonic boom that had nothing to do with airplanes.

Steve's phone call to Mycroft had been perfunctory. John had given him the number and told him to call if anything happened. Steve knew that Sherlock (for all he blustered about his brother and how much he hated him) would want him to know as well. But as soon as he got that chore out of the way, his team had begun searching.

John was a teleport, probably the only one on the planet. The first of his kind. If _anyone_ could get them out of there, even just far enough to withstand the blast, it was him.

That had been very nearly 24 hours ago. Steve called Mycroft every few hours to let him know that they hadn't found anything, and each successive call made him feel like a bit more of him was dying inside. He knew that Mycroft wasn't expecting him to find anything except for a body, but even _that_ would be better than nothing. 

Steve wasn't psychic, but he got the distinct feeling that his refusal to give up the search gratified the elder Holmes. Just a bit.

They'd been circling the base frantically in all directions, searching the area surrounding it for several miles. A team, presumably dispatched by Mycroft, had begun picking the base apart, so Steve and his squad had started recon. They searched in a pattern for three hours, before picking the nearest town with a gas pump, fueling up, and taking off again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally, when he'd zoned out one too many times from exhaustion and despair, his second stopped him, made him pull the car over, and forced him to switch seats with him.

“Right,” Steve said, blankly, once he'd crawled into the passenger seat.

Kevin looked at him, uncomfortable. He reached out and put a hand on Steve's shoulder. “Steve,” he said, quietly. “They haven't found any survivors at the base. _We_ haven't found any survivors either. It's been almost a whole day.” He closed his eyes in pain. “I think you need to accept this, Steve. He's gone.”

Steve's breath caught in his throat. He wasn't much of a crier, but this was _John_. His friend for half a decade, sometime lover, and the only person with his macabre sense of humor. It _meant_ something that he was gone; you can't live through a weeks-long firefight with almost no provisions with someone and _not_ consider them closer than kin.

Kevin started the Land Rover up and began heading back toward Bokar. Steve took the opportunity to have a good cry. 

His men (even _Sorenson_ , who he'd had to fist-fight to earn respect from because of his own sexuality) ignored his distress stoically, letting him cry without shame. He let his mind wander as he did it, fixing on memories of his dead friend. Some were erotic, which just seemed wrong – to think of the dead in such terms – but most of them were just _amusing_. John was a funny sort of guy, and it was his humor that had attracted Steve to him in the first place. 

By the time they crossed the border into Pakistan, he was all cried out. “Thanks, guys,” he said, wiping his tears away. “Anyone got a canteen? I'm parched.”

“Sir,” Sorenson said, handing him his own canteen. His voice was deep in shared grief; he'd _liked_ John. Hell, _everyone_ on Steve's team had liked John. They'd all mostly got on with Sherlock, as well, and Sally and Greg had managed to grow rather close to the whole squad in the time they'd been together. Everyone was rooting for them to find the missing quartet. 

Steve accepted the canteen with thanks and drank deeply, slaking his thirst. Nothing could drain a body of moisture like crying. He let out a sigh, wiping his mouth and capping the canteen before handing it back to Sorenson. 

They'd been driving for about ten more minutes when Steve's radio went off at his hip. “This is Bokar, calling Captain Steve Gale. Come in, over.”

It was Ken Costa; Steve would recognize his voice anywhere. He reached up to his collar and pressed the toggle for the radio down. 

“Go for Gale, what's up?”

“Sir,” Ken said. “There's someone here demanding to talk –“

There was a loud noise, crackling. Someone had yanked the radio away from Ken with almost no decorum. Steve sat up in alarm; were they under attack?

“You utter _wanker_ ,” a familiar voice said. “ _Give me that._ Steve? Could you maybe get your pretty ass back to Bokar? Seeing as you have the only satellite phone in Pakistan, apparently. I bet Mycroft's shitting a brick right now and he'd appreciate a call to let him know we're not dead.”

It was _John_.

Steve let out an explosive breath, giddy in his excitement and happiness. A bark of laughter flew out of his lips, one that was echoed by his squad. They _may_ have sounded a bit hysterical.

“We're about ten minutes to you,” he replied, still laughing in his excitement and sudden adrenaline rush. His crew grinned at him, manically. “You know that if you ever do that to me again, I'm going to need to punch you, right?”

John laughed. “Just get back to base, you git.” His voice was affectionate.

The radio spluttered again before another familiar voice – this one slower, drawling, deep, and _utterly_ scathing. “Please stop flirting with my lover and return to base,” Sherlock said. “As I'm relatively certain my brother is anxious to hear from me.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

Several hours later, the four of them and Steve's squad were happily draped (at various angles and freshly washed, clothed and fed) across couches in a lounge and office at Kandahar Air Base. It had seemed almost like a dream; until, of course, the debriefing began. Luckily, _Mycroft_ was doing the debriefing and he didn't need things repeated in triplicate, as he caught them the first time, thank you very much.

The look on Mycroft's face when he spotted his baby brother walking toward him across the tarmac was rather spectacular, actually. (He had been snarling at a sergeant for jostling Sally, who had a rather bad burn across her left arm but was otherwise okay; it wasn't a very attractive first sighting.) John wanted to remember it for the rest of his life: Mycroft Holmes, stunned and emotional. Well, emotional for him.

He'd _actually_ hugged Sherlock this time. Sherlock had looked _very_ uncomfortable, but at John's glare he'd tentatively reached up and patted his brother's back.

“No more coming back from the dead,” Mycroft had said, gruffly patting his brother on the shoulder as he turned and walked back into the building, stiff and formal. Sherlock looked stunned.

“He may be an annoying git, Sherlock,” John said, softly, taking him by the elbow and guiding him inside. “But he _is_ still family.”

Greg had a bemused sort of grin on his face as he followed them inside. “I've known Mycroft Holmes eight years, and I've never seen him less than steady. Perhaps a bit annoyed sometimes. I think you really scared him, Sherlock.”

“Um, hello,” Sally said, wincing with pain. “Medic? Please?”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

“It was kind of an accident,” John said. The leadership was once again gathered in a soundproof meeting room, although this one was quite a bit more spacious and comfortable. Steve's men awaited him just outside, acting as guard while relaxing. “I just kind of grabbed everyone and jumped on instinct. I went for the safest place I could think of.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow but didn't speak, waiting for John to continue.

“I know, it was _stupid_. We didn't have any gear but what we were wearing, as they'd taken our things. We only had my gun, some assorted food, and two camelbaks between the four of us. But we're alive, so I guess it works.”

“ _Really_ , John, just keep us in suspense,” Steve said, rolling his eyes and throwing a wadded-up piece of paper at him. 

“No suspense about it,” John shot back, catching the ball of paper and tossing it in Steve's direction. “I jumped us to the cave we escaped to the first time Moran snagged us. It was deep and dark and full of fucking camel spiders, but we managed to stumble our way out once we realized we were alive. It's about an hour away from Bokar by Land Rover, but –“

Sherlock sighed. “We wound up going in the wrong direction for several miles, as well, because we didn't have a map anymore. Walking is tedious, especially in the desert.”

Sally snorted. “You're just mad because you have a sunburn. Wouldn't be helped if you'd leave your bloody house during the summer.”

“Why would I want to?” Sherlock shot back. “Mosquitoes and sunburns, nothing for it.”

Greg laughed outright. “Knock it off, you two,” he said, nudging Sally. He grinned and pulled his tarot cards out again. “It's a good thing I keep these puppies in my pocket, or I'd be real mad right about now.”

John raised his eyebrow.

“It's past midnight, Johnny boy,” Steve said with enthusiasm, leaning in. “Go on, then, Greg. Pick a card, any card.”

Even Mycroft and not-Anthea were interested, leaning forward. Greg shuffled for a few seconds, closing his eyes and drawing at random.

“The Sun,” John said. Sherlock's smile was slow but full.

“A good card to draw,” Sherlock said.

“What does it mean?” Kevin asked, frowning. 

Greg smiled. He put the card back in with his deck and wrapped the whole lot, shoving it into his pocket. Then he spread his hands.

“Joy and peace. Happiness. Sherlock's right, it _is_ a good card to have.” He smiled. “I think we could use a bit of joy and peace these days, the lot of us.”

 

**\+ + + + +**

 

TWO MONTHS LATER

 

John let his body sink, gratefully, into his chair. The comforting familiarity of it relaxed him, which he direly needed after the night he'd had.

Let it be said that Sally Donovan-Watson _knew how to party._

He rotated his head on his shoulders, gingerly. They'd just come in from the wedding reception, stiff and sore from the dancing they'd been forced to endure. Well, mostly John; no one really had the courage to force Sherlock into enthusiastic dancing, although he had (begrudgingly) submitted to the indignity of a waltz apiece for Sally and John.

He sat there for several minutes, eyes closed, trying to gather the energy to drag his sorry ass off to bed. To his surprise, Sherlock nudged him awake out of a doze and handed him a warm cup of tea. 

“Oh God, _yes_ ,” John hissed, stretching and blowing on the tea to cool it. “This is _exactly_ what I need. Thank you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock pointedly did _not_ attempt to curl up in his lap, which he often did after John forced him to attend social events. It was part selfishness and part punishment – Sherlock was very much aware that it was uncomfortable for John and that he, Sherlock, had enough mass to force John's feet asleep. John appreciated that Sherlock wasn't subjecting him to it. Instead, the two of them sat in companionable silence and sipped their tea.

John was surprised to hear a knock at the door – Greg had gone home with one of Harry's bridesmaids, and Mrs. Hudson had booked a room at the hotel it had been held at. Ostensibly this was because her hip was hurting her, but realistically it was because she'd had a bit much to drink at the reception (and, John heard her think, she might give the two of them some alone time. John didn't have the heart to inform her that he was entirely too sore and tired to do anything with Sherlock except cuddle up in bed and sleep). 

Without waiting for an answer, Mycroft opened the door and closed it behind him.

Sherlock pouted; the tentative truce that the two men had struck up was subject to the whims of Sherlock's mood. While the two siblings got on fairly well these days, Sherlock still didn't particularly _like_ his brother.

John wasn't sure the feeling was mutual, but Mycroft kept it up for appearance's sake, anyway.

Sherlock sighed theatrically and stood, gesturing for his brother to take his seat. Mycroft rolled his eyes and gingerly lowered himself into Sherlock's chair, as if it might bite him.

Sherlock rested his arse up against the arm of John's chair and crossed his arms. 

“To what do we owe the honor?” John asked, since neither Holmes brother seemed inclined to start the conversation off.

“My purpose here is two-pronged,” Mycroft said. He smiled, a tight smile that didn't at all seem happy. “The first is that using the intelligence you provided us, we've managed to trace Moran's funding source back to an old friend of yours.”

John blinked.

“Sebastian Wilkes,” Mycroft said, flicking his eyes toward Sherlock. “A mild telepath with delusions of grandeur.”

“Wow,” John said, leaning back. “I did not see that coming.”

Mycroft smiled again; this smile was more dangerous. “Neither did he.”

Sherlock, for some reason, looked satisfied. John narrowed his eyes.

“You knew about this?”

“I had an inkling,” Sherlock corrected him. “At the last second, Moran's helmet blew off, and I got the full blast of what he was thinking; naturally, he was quite angry at us, but he was more afraid of his boss, which was why he installed a failsafe self-destruct button.”

“Why would anyone be afraid of Sebastian Wilkes?” John asked. Sherlock's eyes narrowed.

“I don't wish to discuss it.”

John knew he wouldn't get anything out of either brother without resorting to telepathic trickery, and he held himself to a higher standard than that. He let it drop.

“So Wilkes is dead?” Sherlock asked, inclining his head toward his brother.

“Yes. Completely taken care of. His wealth has been distributed to several charities that would have him rolling in his grave.” Surprisingly, Mycroft wore a smile that Sherlock seemed to be matching.

It was more than a little eerie. 

They were all silent for several minutes while John contemplated that. He didn't bother trying to figure out what either brother was thinking.

“You said you were here for two reasons,” John pointed out. Mycroft sighed.

“Yes,” he acknowledged. At this point he pulled an envelope out of his inner pocket. “Not nearly so pleasant a reason, I'm afraid. I'm the bearer of rather bad news.”

Sherlock frowned. “Bad news?”

Mycroft nodded, looking at John. “I'm afraid that Captain Gale has passed away.”

It took several seconds for the words to filter through John's mind, and he reeled back. “What?”

Sherlock looked stunned.

“It was unfortunate,” Mycroft said. “Most unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate?” John rose to his feet. “How could you possibly...someone you worked with, closely, in a war zone...how could you call their death _unfortunate_?”

He was angry now; tears stung at his eyes and his fist was curled up into a ball, aching to punch Mycroft Holmes square in the root canal.

“The _timing_ was unfortunate,” Mycroft said, alarmed. “He'd just been approved for several weeks leave; it's my understanding that he was going to come visit the two of you.” He held out the envelope. “This was found in his possessions. He clearly intended on sending it straight away.”

Damn right he did; it was neatly addressed, in Steve's handwriting, to 221B Baker Street. There were even stamps on it.

“How?” John found himself asking.

Mycroft sighed. “Just outside of Kandahar, actually. He deflected fire to save his squad. I hear talk of a medal of honor; we're doing our best to assure it.”

John squeezed his eyes closed. “Did they make it? Was it worth it?”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, immediately, with no hesitation. “Captain Kevin Holland will be taking over the squad; his cousin was injured but for the most part, there were no casualties, minor or otherwise.”

John swallowed. It hurt, a ragged ball of pain and mourning in his chest, and it felt like he was dying.

Behind him, Sherlock reached out, tentatively, offering support but not forcing it on him. John accepted his hand, squeezing it briefly in thanks, before dropping it.

“I'm...I'll be back,” he said. “I need...I just need to be alone while I read it. Okay?”

Both brothers nodded gravely.

John walked into the room he and Sherlock shared and sat on the bed. He was sitting on Sherlock's side, but it didn't matter at the moment.

Part of him didn't want to open it. It was the last piece of his friend that he had in the world and he wanted it to stay pristine. But he needed to know what Steve's last words to him had been, so carefully, he opened it. 

It was a single page, in Steve's neat printing – he detested formal handwriting, preferring instead an even stylized, angular hand that was easy to read and completely capitalized. He'd liked it because it was easier to jot down notes and read them later, John recalled.

He laughed, a little hysterically, as he smoothed the papers down against his legs. He closed his eyes one last time, inhaling and exhaling in quick succession before getting down to business.

_John;_

_Hey, I got the invitation! I can't believe you slipped that one past me, asshole – I really believed you were already married. I'm not usually that gullible._

_I couldn't get off in time for the wedding, but I've arranged leave for three weeks after. I should be shipping out sometime around August 9, so clear a spot for me on your couch. Unless your silver fox of a flatmate wants to share his bed with me._

_I'm kidding. Maybe. *wink*_

_In all seriousness, I'm really happy for you, Johnny. Not only is your future-husband absolutely freaking gorgeous, but he's smart and morbid and interesting – just the kind of person you need in your life. He'll keep you from going bored and I can already tell you're going to be deliriously happy. We were worried for you, all of us from the good old days, when you got invalided out. Christian (remember him? He said he came to see you right before you left. I hope you didn't let him see you off like I did. *nudge nudge*) said that he thought you'd be dead within a month back in civilian life. Being a soldier and a doctor was such a huge part of who you were, who you are, and I'm really glad you've found someone who can keep you steady as a civvie. _

_Tell Sherlock I said hi and congratulations, by the way. I'm only a little bit jealous. And while I'm at it, tell Sally I said hi, too, and wink really naughtily at Greg for me, will ya?_

_There's some gunfire outside now, so I'm gonna go ahead and let it off here. Just...take care. Be happy. And enjoy your honeymoon. Try not to think of me too much; you know how jealous Sherlock gets. _

_-Steve_

By the time John finished the letter, he was laughing and crying at the same time. August 9 th – Steve would have shown up yesterday, had he not gone and died on them.

Carefully, so as not to get tears on the letter, he folded it up and put it back in it's envelope, setting it – for now – on Sherlock's nightstand. He wiped his eyes and walked back out into the sitting room. Sherlock looked over at him, inquisitively.

“I'm fine. Thanks for bringing it by, Mycroft,” John said. His voice was hoarse, but he _was_ going to be fine. After all, Steve had been right – he was a soldier. Soldiers deal with death. It's sort of their gig.

Sherlock shot out of John's chair, allowing his husband to settle back into it. He seemed uncertain for several seconds, and then he darted off toward the kitchen, no doubt to make tea.

John could use a cup.

It was a sign of how much the whole thing had upset him that he walked out of the kitchen with _three_ mugs; Sherlock never served Mycroft tea if he could help it, because it gave him an excuse to stay long enough to _finish_ it. To his credit, Mycroft was struggling not to appear surprised as well.

They were quiet for several minutes before John spoke again.

“ _Ask_ , Mycroft,” he said, sighing. “I know that's not the only reason you came.”

Mycroft cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. We were hoping you might consider coming to work on our research team. On a sort of ... _part-time_ basis.”

John's eyebrows rose; this new problem served as a lovely distraction from the death of a good friend, and he snatched it up.

“What, exactly, would that entail?” John asked.

“Nothing too terrible, I'm assured,” Mycroft said. John narrowed his eyes, and the other man sighed and continued. “No experimentation. Just research, along the lines of what you've already been doing.”

“I don't see why I need to be on your payroll for that,” John said. 

“You don't,” Mycroft agreed. “But you must admit that the resources available would be vast.”

“I'm sure they would be,” John said, amiably. He smiled. “Thanks for the offer, Mycroft, but Sherlock and I have some more lucrative ideas involving our particular skillsets.”

Mycroft's eyebrows rose. “You're going to go public?”

“Eventually, I think,” John said. “In the meantime: more research, more practice, and the development of a business model.”

“You want to go corporate.”

John smiled. “Oh, _yes_. What was the name you came up with, Sherlock?”

Sherlock smirked. “You know I was just joking about Federated Telepaths and Teleporters. That's a _horrible_ name.”

“I dunno. FT &T has a kind of ring to it,” John said, still smiling. He turned his gaze back to Mycroft. “So, I'm really flattered, but I'd rather not be on Her Majesty's payroll right at the moment.” 

“I see,” Mycroft said. He was looking at John speculatively; John wondered if _he_ was considering joining on with _John_. He smirked.

“If that's all for the night, Mycroft,” he said, feeling a slow-acid burn as he remembered Steve. He stood up. “I'm rather tired.”

They parted on amicable terms, which was good: for all that John was, ostensibly, one of the stronger psychics on the planet, his brother-in-law still _terrified_ him.

_God_ , it was going to take a long time to get used to thinking of Mycroft on those terms.

“I never got used to it, and I've been his brother for my entire life,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes as they shut the door behind Mycroft. Immediately, Sherlock surrounded John with his arms; John shouldn't be surprised, because physical intimacy wasn't _actually_ one of the issues Sherlock had. But still, he was surprised: perhaps more because of the consideration than anything else.

It was nice though, being enveloped in Sherlock's arms, breathing in his scent and not having to worry about it all for a while.

“Can I read it?” Sherlock murmured. John laughed. It would have killed Sherlock _not_ to be able to, curious as he was.

“I don't see why not,” John replied, pulling himself out of Sherlock's embrace and drawing him down toward their room. “You're mentioned.”

Sherlock looked skeptical and John laughed some more as they entered their room. He leaned up and looked Sherlock – his husband, and even though they'd been married three weeks the knowledge of that overwhelmed the _fuck_ out of him him sometimes – right in the eye.

“I love you, you know,” he advised him, raising himself up on his toes to plant a kiss on Sherlock's lips.

“Likewise,” Sherlock said, smirking. John smiled; if his smile was a little bit sad, that was to be expected. But still, he thought, as the two of them prepared for bed – he'd done Steve proud. He was _happy_.

That would have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knew from the moment I named the Steve character that he was going to die. I'm sorry; luckily I didn't flesh him out too terribly well, right?
> 
> There's a story behind him, one I wasn't going to share. But I kind of _need_ to, just for my own sake, so bear with me.
> 
> Back in 2003 I started working as a stagehand through the same group my dad worked through. Around the same time, another member's kid joined. His name was Steve, and we were about six months apart in age. We looked very similarly, had similar interests, and while we weren't the closest of friends, we _were_ friends, if only because of the age similarity and the fact that both of our dads got us into the industry.
> 
> Several years later I met and then married my current husband. He was really close friends with Steve, who I then became closer to through repeated exposure. His pit bull, Keyser, was playmates with my pit bull, Ziva (they are jointly responsible for the combined destruction of my living room). He slept on my couch, ate my food, drank my beer. We went to go see his band play live frequently; my husband and I sometimes ran sound for him and helped with load-in and load-out. When Steve needed a hand moving house, my husband was the only one to show up; when Steve was considering getting married, my husband and I were the ones he bounced ideas off of. We were close.
> 
> May 8, 2011: Steve was walking home from a bar with some friends in downtown Reno. A group of kids (one of them was 13, but the rest were in their very very late teens, early 20's) attacked them, attempting to mug them. Steve fought back, because he defended his friends, always. It wouldn't have occurred to him that they might have a gun; that's just not the kind of guy he was. But they did, and he died because of it.
> 
> Steve wasn't gay; in fact, he was something of a ladies man. But he supported love in any form, and I can't imagine that he'd mind me naming a character after him that was gay, especially as my Steve died the way the real Steve did: defending his friends.
> 
> It's been just over a year since Steve died, and the world is a colder place for it. But there's a bright point in all of this: as far as I can tell, there are at _least_ 20 or 30 people in far-flung places that are keeping up with this story, who are going to read this and know that for a brief moment, Steven Gale shined brighter than anything else in the world.
> 
> I bet his death-song would have been _beautiful_.


End file.
